Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
Mississippi Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System - In response to Notice of Funding Opportunity CDC-RFA-DP20-2007, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS): Impact in Population Health, the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) is applying to continue its participation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s BRFSS. The Mississippi BRFSS Program will be housed in the MSDH Office of Health Data and Research, which is directed by Lei Zhang, PhD, MS, MBA. Dr. Zhang will also serve as the program’s Principal Investigator (PI). The purposed of the Mississippi BRFSS Program is to collect and analyze surveillance data using a sample of landline and cell telephone numbers, monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors that are associated with chronic health problems and preventable injuries, and help respond to current and emerging health threats. For the funding period, August 1, 2020 to July 31, 2023, the Mississippi BRFSS Program has identified five short-term outcomes, four intermediate-term outcomes, and progresses towards one long-term outcome. Short-term outcomes include the following: (1) MSDH will increase access to high quality and timelier BRFSS data collected and analyzed by organizations; (2) MSDH will increase dissemination to health professionals and public health stakeholders to determine Mississippi’s health risk behaviors and health status; (3) MSDH will increase dissemination of the number of completed interviews from survey responders; (4) MSDH will implement the core BRFSS survey and 4-6 modules, such as Childhood Asthma Prevalence, Prediabetes, Cognitive Decline, and Industry and Occupation; and (5) MSDH will implement the BRFSS Asthma Call-back Survey (ACBS) and the BRFSS random child selection module in its call-back survey. Intermediate outcomes include the following: (1) Mississippi BRFSS data will be used by public health organizations to identify health risk behaviors and health status of Mississippi’s population; (2) Mississippi BRFSS data will inform development of effective prevention and disease management programs, policies, and services; (3) MSDH will complete the core BRFSS survey and selected optional modules; and (4) MSDH will complete the BRFSS ACBS, and include the BRFSS random child selection module in its survey. Its long-term outcome is to increase the number of public policy decisions that improve the U.S. population health resulting from using BRFSS data to support public health programs. The Mississippi BRFSS Program Team will continue to meet quarterly with its MSDH and its external partners. Partners external to MSDH will include Jackson State University, University of Mississippi Medical Center and Mississippi State University to participate as partners. As it has in the past, MSDH anticipates it will partner with the Southern Research Group to collect BRFSS data. The Mississippi BRFSS Program Team brings to this application several years of successful experience with surveillance studies, including effectively gathering, analyzing, interpreting, and using evidence based strategies to inform public policy decisions. The PI has developed a secure data management plan and an effective evaluation plan for the conduct of the Mississippi BRFSS Program.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).