Mary Vernon-Smiley, senior program consultant on the CDC Steps team; and Goldie MacDonald, evaluation lead for the Steps program.

For those of you who developed applications in 2003, this will look pretty familiar. There are a few important changes this year, and we’ll point those out as we go along.

We hope this Webcast will be helpful to you in developing your applications. However, it will not cover all the details and requirements of the RFA. Only a careful reading of the program announcement as posted in the Federal Register can do that.

If you don’t have access to the Webcast question box, send us your questions in an e-mail to StepsInfo@cdc.gov. We’ll pause to answer questions several times during the discussion, and then for a longer time at the end. We’ll try to answer as many questions as possible during the Webcast.

First, let me stress that this funding initiative is truly a cooperative agreement. By that, I mean that the success of the program will rely on our working together to utilize the strengths we all bring to the table. You understand your communities -– the needs, culture, and resources available –- and how to work within that environment. H-H-S will provide technical assistance and overall evaluation coordination. Your fellow grantees will provide a sounding board for ideas, advise you about their past experiences, and work with you to develop common indicators to measure progress.

The purpose of the Steps program is stated clearly at the beginning of the RFA, on page 25802, at the bottom of the left column. The last 2 paragraphs of that section state that your interventions are to target diabetes, obesity, and asthma and their associated risk factors of poor nutrition, physical inactivity, and tobacco use. These are all core program components which must be addressed. All six of them.

The first thing to note here is the first sentence. This is a change from last year’s RFA.

I’ll read it:

"If your application is incomplete or non-responsive to the requirements listed in this section, it will not be entered into the review process."

As we go through this section I’ll highlight what those requirements are, and then we’ll break to respond to your questions.

Admittedly, the eligibility criteria for the Steps program are complex and I’d like to clarify them for you now.

Large Cities/
Urban Communities

A bona fide agent might be named if, for example, there is no local health department in the community. Or if the local health department does not have sufficient staff or capacity to manage a project of this size.

The principal Tribal elected official or chief executive officer must select a lead/fiduciary agent for the project.

Tribal applicants can designate non-contiguous catchment areas and intervention areas.

Each community must have a population of at least 10,000, and the total population of all the proposed communities cannot exceed 800,000.

You must identify the targeted communities in your application. If you only describe a process for later selecting them, that will not be acceptable.

The communities may be located in different parts of the state. That is, one community might be a small town in the northern part of the state, another a two-county rural area in the southern part, and so on.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is working with 4 communities:

First, the city of Pueblo in the south;

Second, 3 cities in Mesa County in the west;

Third the city of Greeley and 31 surrounding unincorporated towns in the north;

and Fourth, several small mountain communities in Teller County.

Remember, you can’t phone in your questions, but you can send them to us at any time by typing them into the Webcast question box or by e-mail to StepsInfo@cdc.gov.

In the lower right hand corner of page 25808 is a sub-section titled "Cost Sharing or Matching." Matching funds are required this year for new large city and state coordinated applicants. They are not required for Tribal applicants, although they are encouraged.

Note that the $250,000 retained in the example is all funds not allocated to the communities, even if some of the $250,000 is allocated to other state agencies or non-government organizations.

We’ve already talked about matching funds.

A second purpose of the LOI’s is to detect applicants that might not be eligible. Again, we will contact them to clarify their eligibility to save them the effort of writing an application if it will not qualify.

The listing of required activities begins on page 25803 of the RFA and is divided into 3 sections by type of applicant. Generally, the same requirements apply to all 3 groups, with state applicants having some additional coordination and support requirements.

Explain how your interventions and health promotion activities will actually reach the target audience. You should document the percentage of the community likely to be impacted by the intervention and how that will be measured.

You should explain the logical connection between the proposed interventions and the outcomes that you expect to see if they are implemented well.

If more than one school jurisdiction is involved, explain how decisions will be made.

We want to emphasize the importance of thinking through and then creating an organized structure for the project.

If you’ve used the question box before, it will ask you to revise your earlier question. When you do that, we will have both your earlier questions and the new one. Be sure to include your e-mail address if you want to be sure to get an answer.

As presented in the RFA, relevant data sources include, but are not limited to, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), hospitalization data, or relevant Medicare and Medicaid information.

It is important to note that administration of the BRFSS annually and YRBSS biennially are required under this cooperative agreement. If you are not already working closely with your state BRFSS and YRBSS coordinators, you are strongly encouraged to make this connection prior to submitting your application for funding.

Question Break #3

But you can continue to send questions to the StepsInfo e-mail address from now until the application deadline. All questions to that mailbox will be answered as promptly as possible.

For those of you who didn’t get your questions answered on the Webcast, we’ll answer you directly within the next few days if you gave us your e-mail address.

Well be posting answers to frequently asked questions on our website, www.HealthierUS.gov.

And finally, an archived version of the sound and slides of the Webcast will be available for you to download in a couple of days. Look for it on our website.