The Gates Foundation invites proposals to generate independent, policy-relevant estimates of the global burden of diarrheal diseases, with a focus on mortality and morbidity in children under five living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Overview

Reliable burden estimates are essential for prioritizing disease syndromes and pathogens and for guiding investments in prevention, treatment, and product development. Estimating diarrheal mortality and morbidity and pathogen-specific burden remains challenging due to limited direct mortality and morbidity data in many LMIC settings, uneven etiologic data, and the need to reconcile imperfect diagnostics, multiple pathogens, incomplete surveillance, and sparse location-specific evidence. Modelled estimates of global burden of disease can help overcome data sparsity, and multiple independent estimates would be valuable for triangulating estimates of burden and understanding key drivers of differences.

The Foundation seeks to support independent estimation efforts that inform the overall burden of diarrhea and pathogen-specific contributions, clarify key sources of uncertainty, and produce decision-useful estimates for policymakers, researchers, and global health partners. Multiple burden estimates would help inform the relative importance of diarrhea as a cause of mortality and morbidity in children under five and clarify which pathogens are responsible for the largest share of burden.

Scope of Work

Proposals must include plans to generate, at minimum, the following estimates centered on 2025, using the most recent available data and appropriate methods for projection, interpolation, or extrapolation where needed:

• Country-specific estimates of total diarrheal mortality burden in children under five.
• Country-specific pathogen-attributed mortality burden for children under five.
• Estimates reported as both total number of diarrhea-attributed deaths, pathogen-specific fractions, and mortality incidence rates.
• When possible, country-specific estimates of total and/or pathogen-attributed morbidity burden, measured as all cause or pathogen-specific disease cases, severe disease cases, or hospitalizations, presented as the total numbers, pathogen-specific fractions, and/or incidence rates.
• Estimates reported as point estimates with confidence/uncertainty intervals.

The geographic scope may include proposed estimates for a single country, region, all LMICs, or global. Preference will be given to proposals focused on geographies where diarrheal mortality is expected to be highest or where improved estimates of both mortality and morbidity would have particularly high programmatic relevance, including but not limited to India, Nigeria, and sub-Saharan Africa.

At minimum, proposals should include estimates for the following pathogens: Rotavirus, Shigella, Adenovirus 40/41, Norovirus GII, ST-ETEC, Cholera (endemic), Cryptosporidium, and Campylobacter.

Eligibility

This opportunity is open to research institutes, nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions with demonstrated expertise in disease burden estimation, epidemiology, biostatistics, and related quantitative methods.

The Foundation welcomes proposals from:

• LMIC-based institutions
• Partnerships led by LMIC institutions
• Global consortia that include meaningful LMIC partner engagement and capacity development

Applications that pair high-quality analytic output with intentional LMIC capacity building are especially encouraged.

Funding and Benefits

The Foundation will consider applications requesting up to $1.5 million USD per project, with a maximum grant duration of two years. Proposed budgets should be commensurate with the scale and complexity of the work. Indirect costs are allowable and must be included within the total requested funding, in accordance with the Gates Foundation’s indirect cost policy.

Deadline and Timeline

The application deadline is not specified, but interested parties should review the guidelines for submission.

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