Outcomes, Cost Effectiveness and the Decision Making Process to Use Complementary and Alternative Medicine (R01) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The NIH funding opportunity titled "Outcomes, Cost Effectiveness and the Decision Making Process to Use Complementary and Alternative Medicine (R01)" (Funding Opportunity Number PAR-08-045) supports research focused on how complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is actually used in real-world community settings, what outcomes people experience, what those approaches cost, and how patients and providers decide whether to use CAM. It is jointly associated with the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), reflecting an interest in both broader CAM use and questions relevant to cancer control and care.

A central point of the announcement is that it is intended for observational research rather than experimental clinical trials. The goal is to encourage strong, well-designed observational studies that evaluate effectiveness and cost effectiveness of CAM approaches as they are chosen and used outside of a controlled research assignment. That includes studying decision-making processes, meaning the beliefs, preferences, information sources, social influences, provider recommendations, access issues, perceived risks and benefits, and other practical factors that shape why a patient decides to use CAM, why a provider may recommend or discourage it, and how those decisions evolve over time. Because the emphasis is on understanding real-world use, studies can be designed to follow people prospectively, analyze existing cohorts, use registries, leverage electronic health records, conduct survey-based or mixed-methods research, or apply other observational designs that can credibly answer questions about outcomes, utilization patterns, costs, and decision pathways.

The FOA places a clear restriction on what is not allowed: investigators may not assign participants to specific therapies, whether CAM or conventional, and may not assign them to groups of therapies. In other words, randomized controlled trials or any design where the research team determines which treatment a participant receives are outside the scope of this opportunity. Participants may, however, be observed based on choices made in usual care or community practice, which aligns with comparative effectiveness and health services research approaches that examine what happens when people choose different paths in the real world.

Funding is provided through the NIH Research Project Grant (R01) mechanism, which is typically used for substantial, hypothesis-driven research projects that require a well-developed plan, a capable investigative team, and a clear analytic strategy. The announcement notes that awards depend on the availability of funds and the submission of enough meritorious applications. It also emphasizes that award size and project duration can vary because the scope of observational CAM outcomes and cost studies can differ widely from one application to another. The total number of awards and total dollars ultimately committed are not fixed in the summary information; they depend on the quality, duration, and budget levels of the applications received.

From an eligibility standpoint, the FOA is broadly open. Eligible applicants include public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits (including those with and without 501(c)(3) status), independent school districts, special district governments, and multiple levels of local government (city/township and county), as well as public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities. Native American tribal governments (federally recognized) and other Native American tribal organizations are eligible. The opportunity also explicitly states that foreign institutions may apply, and that faith-based or community-based organizations can apply, which signals an openness to community-embedded research partnerships and international observational studies where appropriate.

Key administrative details include that it is a discretionary grant opportunity, with no cost sharing or matching requirement. The CFDA program references provided are 93.213 (Research and Training in Complementary and Integrative Health) and 93.399 (Cancer Control). The opportunity was posted on December 13, 2007, with an original closing date of May 19, 2010, and it was later archived on June 19, 2010. The full announcement is linked through NIH at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-08-045.html, and NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) webmaster contact information is included for access or linking issues.

Overall, this FOA is aimed at building practical, policy- and practice-relevant evidence about CAM as it is used in everyday life: whether it helps, what it costs relative to outcomes, and what drives real decisions by patients and providers. It is designed to support rigorous observational methods that can inform clinicians, patients, health systems, and payers without introducing treatment assignment by the research team.

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