Diet, Obesity and Weight Change in Pregnancy

The Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Health Behavior Branch, of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) National Institutes of Health, intends to negotiate a modification to Contract No. HHSN275201300015C entitled, "Diet, Obesity and Weight Change in Pregnancy" to add a brain imaging assessment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to evaluate reward responsivity to food stimuli among study participants. Under the ongoing contract, NICHD obtains longitudinal data on a cohort of pregnant women including anthropometric data, clinical data, biospecimens, dietary intake, food reward responsivity, behavioral control, and other diet and health related measures. The current contractor, University of North Carolina (UNC), furnishes all the necessary services, qualified personnel, materials, equipment, and facilities needed to implement, maintain, coordinate, and manage recruitment and assessment of participants from early pregnancy through one year postpartum. This additional effort can only be provided by UNC because has the existing infrastructure of the current contract. Awarding a new contract to another contractor would create duplication of the infrastructure, effort for participant recruitment and assessment of all the measures obtained in the current study. This would be highly inefficient. Extensive resources have been used to prepare the research site for recruitment and study activities, to conduct training for all staff on current data systems and study procedures, and to recruit and assess study participants on the numerous study measures. Almost all of this work would need to be duplicated if the fMRI assessment data were obtained elsewhere. This would result in unacceptable delays and substantially increased costs to the government. In view of its experience with the activities under the current contract and its existing infrastructure, UNC is uniquely qualified to perform the proposed work. This is not a request for proposals. However, if any responsible source believes it can perform the above requirement, it may a capability statement electronically for consideration by the NICHD to Alice Pag'n Pereira, Contracting Officer, at Alice.Pagan@ nih.gov or to Deborah Brock, Contract Specialist at Deborah.Brock@nih.gov. Information regarding respondents': (a) staff expertise, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training; (b) current in-house capability and capacity to perform the work; (c) prior completed projects of similar nature; (d) corporate experience and management capability; and (e) examples of prior completed Government contracts, references, and other related information should be provided if you submit a capability statement. Your capability statement should be no more than 15 pages in length, excluding resumes. All responses must be received in electronically no later than April 14, 2015 and must contain material in sufficient detail to allow the NICHD to determine if the organization can perform this requirement. The capability statement will be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. A determination by the government not to compete this proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the government.