IHS Opens $35M Tribal Epidemiology Centers Cooperative Agreement, July 13 Deadline (HHS-2026-IHS-EP1-0001)

Tribal community-based organizations and Urban Indian Organizations have until July 13, 2026 to compete for 12 cooperative agreement awards under the Indian Health Service's $35 million Epidemiology Program for American Indian/Alaska Native Tribes and Urban Indian Communities (HHS-2026-IHS-EP1-0001), posted May 14 on grants.gov.

The posting on grants.gov, in plain numbers

The full notice is live at grants.gov opportunity 360301, administered by the IHS Division of Grants Management under CFDA listing 93.231 (Epidemiology Cooperative Agreements). The Service expects to issue 12 awards from the $35 million pool — roughly one per IHS Administrative Area — with an award floor of $75,000 and a ceiling of $3,500,000 across a five-year project period structured as five one-year budget periods, subject to annual appropriations. There is no cost-sharing or match requirement, which removes one of the biggest barriers smaller tribal organizations face when chasing federal public health dollars. Applications close at 11:59 p.m. ET on July 13, 2026, roughly 60 days after the posting date. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, not a discretionary grant, which means the program officer will be embedded in the work after award.

What a Tribal Epidemiology Center actually does

Tribal Epidemiology Centers — TECs — are not a new idea. Congress authorized the program in 1996, then reauthorized and expanded it under the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, where TECs were granted formal public health authority status and seven mandated functions: collecting data relating to, and monitoring progress on, the health status objectives of IHS, Tribes, and Urban Indian Communities; evaluating existing delivery and data systems that affect Indian Health; assisting Tribes and Urban Indian Communities in identifying highest-priority health status objectives; making recommendations for the targeting of services; making recommendations to improve health care delivery systems; providing technical assistance in developing local health service priorities and grant applications; and providing disease surveillance to promote public health.

Twelve TECs currently operate, mapped against the IHS Administrative Areas — Alaska, Albuquerque, Bemidji, Billings, California, Great Plains, Nashville, Navajo, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Portland, and Tucson — plus the Urban Indian Health Institute housed at the Seattle Indian Health Board, which serves UIOs nationwide. The cooperative agreement that funds them runs in five-year cycles, and 2026 is the renewal year. Awardees from the prior 2021 cycle (HHS-2021-IHS-EPI-0001) are eligible to recompete; new entrants must meet the same population and governance bars.

Eligibility is a narrow door with specific keys

The notice limits eligibility to four entity types: federally recognized Indian Tribes, tribal organizations as defined in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, Urban Indian Organizations with current 501(c)(3) status, and intertribal consortiums. The narrower test, and the one that disqualifies most first-time applicants, is the population-and-coverage threshold: an applicant must serve at least 60,000 American Indian/Alaska Native people, or hold authorization from at least 70% of the tribal governments in its IHS Service Area. Either bar can be met, but both require documentation — Tribal Resolutions or formal letters of support from each governing body the applicant claims to represent.

For tribal CBOs that have historically focused on direct service rather than population-level data work, the resolution requirement is the realistic gating step. Building consensus across multiple sovereign tribal governments in 60 days is not impossible, but it is the part of the application that cannot be drafted by a grant writer alone. Organizations that did not begin that conversation before the May 14 posting should treat the resolution timeline as the binding constraint on whether they can submit at all in this cycle.

What reviewers will be looking for

Because HHS-2026-IHS-EP1-0001 is a cooperative agreement, IHS retains substantial post-award involvement: deliverables are negotiated rather than fully proposed, continuation funding is contingent on annual progress reports, and a federal program officer co-manages the workplan. Reviewers will weight three things heavily.

First, demonstrated capacity to execute the seven IHCIA functions — not just intent, but evidence in the form of prior surveillance work, data-sharing agreements with state and federal partners, IRB infrastructure, and staff with MPH-level credentials or equivalent experience. Second, governance: a clear line from the served tribes to the applicant entity, ideally through a board structure that includes tribal health directors or designees. Third, an evaluation plan that ties activities to measurable improvements in public health outcomes in the served population — the authorizing statute is explicit that TECs exist to move the needle on health status, not just produce reports.

The notice signals applications will be reviewed against standard IHS technical criteria — project approach, organizational capability, staff and resources, budget reasonableness, and tribal/community involvement — with the heaviest single weighting on project approach.

Why this RFP carries more weight in 2026 than in 2021

Three things have changed since the last competitive cycle. Public Health Service Act emergency authorities used during the COVID-19 response sunset between 2023 and 2024, leaving TECs as the durable public-health-authority backbone in Indian Country — a role several state health departments have publicly acknowledged in interagency data-sharing MOUs over the past two years. Second, the CDC's data modernization initiative pushed real-time syndromic surveillance, electronic case reporting, and wastewater monitoring into routine practice, and TECs are statutorily positioned to receive and analyze that data on behalf of tribal nations that do not operate their own state-equivalent public health agency. Third, tribal data sovereignty — the principle that AI/AN data belongs to AI/AN nations — has moved from advocacy position to procurement requirement in several federal-tribal data agreements signed since 2023, and TECs are the entities best structured to enforce it.

For a tribal CBO or UIO that has been doing the work of public health surveillance informally — case investigation during outbreaks, vaccine coverage tracking, behavioral health needs assessments — this is the funding stream that turns that work into a recognized public health authority function with a five-year budget behind it.

What to do this week if you intend to apply

The procedural checklist is short but unforgiving: confirm an active SAM.gov registration with a valid UEI, set up a Grants.gov workspace for HHS-2026-IHS-EP1-0001, and request the Tribal Resolutions or letters of support immediately — not in week four. The IHS Division of Grants Management can be reached at dgm@ihs.gov or (301) 443-2114 for technical questions about the application package; programmatic questions route to the Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention. A pre-application teleconference is standard for IHS cooperative agreements of this size, and applicants should watch the IHS DGM funding page for call-in details in the next two weeks.

For organizations that determine they cannot clear the 60,000-population or 70%-of-tribes threshold in this cycle, the practical path is to align with an existing TEC as a subrecipient on a specific project — most TECs subaward to community-level partners for data collection, workforce training, and direct intervention work, and those subawards are typically negotiated within the first 12 months of a new cooperative agreement period.

Find adjacent funding while you build the package

Many CBOs working on tribal public health pursue several funding streams in parallel — CDC public health infrastructure grants, HRSA's Native Hawaiian Health Care and Tribal Maternal Health programs, SAMHSA Tribal Behavioral Health awards, and USDA Rural Development community facilities financing for clinic infrastructure. Search active opportunities filtered to tribal eligibility on Granted's grant search, and follow ongoing coverage of federal funding cycles affecting community-based organizations on the Granted blog.

The window on HHS-2026-IHS-EP1-0001 is real, but it is short, and the population threshold means most of the work of qualifying happens before the application narrative is even opened. For the twelve organizations that will hold a TEC cooperative agreement on October 1, 2026, the foundation for that award is being laid this week.