PCORI offers up to $200 million for new health research on substance use, rare diseases

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today began inviting proposals for new studies and projects through eight funding opportunities. Five PCORI Funding Announcements (PFAs) are for patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER), including two offering up to $200 million for studies aimed at addressing rare diseases and substance use. Among the CER PFAs, a third offers up to $50 million in funding for researchers leading ongoing PCORI CER studies to examine later effects of therapeutic interventions, treatments and programs and provide a more comprehensive view of intervention benefits and harms.

Nakela L. Cook, M.D., MPH

"We are pleased to offer these funding opportunities, continuing PCORI's vital work as the nation's leading funder of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research," said PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, M.D., MPH. "The research PCORI will fund through these opportunities will help fill evidence gaps related to an array of high-burden health conditions, providing patients, clinicians and other health care decision makers valuable information to make better-informed decisions."

Two of the latest CER PFAs focus on PCORI Topic Themes, which are intersectional research areas addressing health issues impacting millions of people. These PFAs, each offering up to $100 million, concentrate on:

• Addressing rare diseases, with an emphasis on approaches to symptom management, timely diagnosis and improving care delivery for individuals with rare diseases.
• Addressing substance use, with an emphasis on advancing equity in the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders, interventions for overdose prevention and strategies for reducing nicotine and tobacco use in disproportionately affected populations.

In addition, PCORI is offering up to $200 million through the Phased Large Awards for Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research (PLACER) PFA, which seeks proposals for ambitious, large-scale two-phased trials addressing critical decisional dilemmas requiring new evidence about the comparative effectiveness of available interventions. PCORI also is offering up to $160 million through the Broad Pragmatic Studies (BPS) PFA and encourages submissions for studies on:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Improving health and quality of life for people with Down syndrome.
• Peripheral arterial disease.
• Functional sensory impairment in older adults.

Through these PFAs, research teams may also submit applications on any patient-centered CER topic that aligns with PCORI's National Priorities for Health. A submission category for the BPS PFA also invites studies to utilize PCORnet^®, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, to conduct more efficient, large-scale studies.

Additional PFAs focus on implementation of evidence, the science of engagement and methods

PCORI also supports initiatives to accelerate the adoption of useful CER evidence into clinical practice to improve health and health care outcomes. One PFA provides an opportunity for participants in PCORI's Health Systems Implementation Initiative to propose projects that promote the uptake of specific evidence from PCORI-funded patient-centered CER within their health care delivery settings. This funding opportunity advances a groundbreaking, multiyear PCORI-led effort involving an array of health systems across the United States to cut the estimated 17-year lag between the publication of results and their adoption in practice.

Offering up to $36 million, the Advancing Science of Engagement in Research PFA seeks proposals for studies focused on building and strengthening the evidence base on how to optimize engagement of patients and other health care decision makers throughout the design and conduct of patient-centered CER.

Harv Feldman, M.D., MSCE

An additional PFA seeks proposals for methods development studies to enhance the methodologic rigor across the patient-centered CER field. PCORI offers up to $12 million through this PFA.

"PCORI's latest funding opportunities build on the organization's success in funding rigorous patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research that addresses health and health care challenges confronting patients and their families every day," said Harv Feldman, M.D., MSCE, PCORI's deputy executive director for patient-centered research programs. "These diverse funding opportunities will help generate findings that fill evidence gaps and that can be made readily accessible and implementable in clinical practice, which are essential steps toward fulfilling PCORI's mission to improve health, health care decision making and patient outcomes."

Awarded funding totals within and across PCORI PFAs are subject to the quantity and quality of applications received. To date, PCORI has invested more than $4.5 billion to fund patient-centered CER and research-related projects. Details about the most recent funding announcements are on PCORI's website.

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