DoD FY15 Spinal Cord Injury Qualitative Research Award | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The DoD FY15 Spinal Cord Injury Qualitative Research Award (Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-15-SCIRP-QRA) is a Department of the Army/USAMRAA funding opportunity under the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs that supports qualitative research focused on spinal cord injury (SCI). The central goal is to fund studies that dig into lived experience, decision-making, and real-world barriers so researchers and clinicians can better understand what life looks like after SCI and use that knowledge to improve adjustment to disability, overall quality of life, health outcomes, and functional status. Unlike awards that primarily emphasize laboratory or purely clinical efficacy questions, this mechanism is built for social inquiry: understanding how individuals interpret their experiences and how those experiences shape recovery, participation, and long-term wellbeing.

A defining feature of this award is its specific emphasis on military and Veteran populations in the years following SCI, especially during the complex transition from initial injury and acute care through rehabilitation and eventual community reintegration. The opportunity highlights that success in rehabilitation and reintegration is not driven by medical factors alone, and it encourages applicants to examine the mix of issues that can either block or promote progress for Service members and Veterans. The announcement explicitly encourages collaboration with military and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) researchers and clinicians, reflecting an interest in studies that are grounded in the realities of military and VA care systems and that can generate insights directly relevant to those settings.

The program frames qualitative research as a way to translate observations from many sources into structured inquiry, whether those observations come from basic discovery work, population-based studies, a clinician's direct experiences with patients, or patterns noticed through anecdotal or community-based reports. Within that scope, the award points to a wide range of factors that may influence outcomes after SCI, including age, gender, ethnicity, psychological health, injury severity, type of medical facility or care setting (civilian versus VA versus military), co-morbid conditions, and the role of family members and caregivers. In practice, this invites research designs such as interviews, focus groups, ethnographic or observational approaches, and other qualitative methods that can capture nuance, context, and meaning that are often missed by purely quantitative measures.

The announcement provides examples of appropriate qualitative topics, emphasizing studies that are explorative, descriptive, predictive, or explanatory. Specific examples include examining barriers that prevent Service members with SCI from returning to active duty, returning home, or fully reintegrating into civilian community life. It also includes studying how personal factors and co-morbid medical conditions shape health and quality of life during hospitalization following SCI, and how cultural values and beliefs influence the success of rehabilitation and reintegration. Another encouraged area is the impact of medical care decisions, such as whether care was received at a civilian, VA, or military facility and what treatment choices were made, on downstream rehabilitation outcomes and community participation. The opportunity further highlights caregiver and family impacts, including spouse and family strain related to employment and career disruption, emotional stress, physical burden or injury, and relationship or intimacy challenges, recognizing that SCI affects entire family systems and that these dynamics can feed back into patient outcomes.

In addition to these topic examples, the FY15 Spinal Cord Injury Research Program (SCIRP) encourages applications that address one or more broader priority areas spanning the continuum of SCI care and recovery. These include pre-hospital and en route care as well as early hospital management, reflecting interest in the earliest phases of treatment and how early decisions and experiences shape later trajectories. The program also encourages work connected to the development, validation, and timing of interventions aimed at common and serious consequences of SCI, including bladder, bowel, and autonomic dysfunction; cardiometabolic dysfunction; neuropathic pain and sensory dysfunction; pressure ulcers; respiratory dysfunction; and sexual dysfunction. A third set of priorities focuses on identifying and validating best practices in SCI care, including critical care interventions, musculoskeletal health interventions, rehabilitation interventions, surgical interventions, and psychosocial or behavioral interventions specifically relevant to military and Veteran populations. While these themes often appear in clinical research programs, the distinctive angle here is that qualitative work is expected to illuminate how and why interventions and care pathways succeed or fail in real settings, and what patients, families, and clinicians experience as the practical facilitators and obstacles.

Administratively, this was a discretionary funding opportunity using Grant and Cooperative Agreement funding instruments, categorized under Science and Technology and other Research and Development. The expected number of awards was four, with an estimated total funding level of $3.2 million. The CFDA listing provided is 12.420 (Military Medical Research and Development). The eligibility was listed as unrestricted, meaning it was broadly open to applicant types, subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the full announcement. There was no cost sharing or matching requirement. The opportunity was posted on June 2, 2015, with an original and final closing date of October 14, 2015, and an archive date of November 13, 2015.

For applicant support, the announcement directs anyone having trouble accessing the full posting to the CDMRP Help Desk (phone 301-682-5507, email help@eBRAP.org), indicating that submissions and related processes were associated with the CDMRP electronic systems. Overall, the award was designed to produce practice-relevant insights into the human side of SCI recovery in military and Veteran communities, with the expectation that understanding experiences, systems, and transitions can lead to more effective care strategies and better long-term outcomes.

Browse more opportunities from the same agency: Dept. of the Army USAMRAA

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Next opportunity: DoD FY15 Spinal Cord Injury Translational Research Award

Previous opportunity: DoD FY15 Spinal Cord Injury Clinical Trial Award

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