Blog

Shaping Our First Targeted Funding Announcements: Your Help Still Wanted

Published: March 11, 2013

We’re pleased at the interest researchers, patients and other stakeholders have shown so far in our efforts to identify key research questions in five topic areas we’re considering as the subjects of our first targeted funding announcements. And we hope to see even more interest and input in coming weeks.

Past Workgroup Meetings
Obesity Treatment Options in Diverse Populations April 16 | Feedback Deadline: April 30
Treatment Options for Back Pain March 21 | Feedback Deadline: April 4
Preventing Injuries from Falls in the Elderly March 12 | Feedback Deadline: March 26
Treatment Options for Uterine Fibroids March 5 | Feedback Deadline: March 19
Treatment Options for Severe Asthma in African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos March 1 | Feedback Deadline: March 15

On March 1, we launched a series of ad hoc multi-stakeholder workgroups to help us refine these questions, starting with Treatment Options for Severe Asthma in African-Americans and Hispanics/Latinos. Our second workgroup, on Treatment Options for Uterine Fibroids, followed on March 5.

Along with the 27 workgroup members who joined us in person and remotely for the two day-long sessions, about 80 people followed the proceedings via webinar. We also took questions via our website, email, Twitter and telephone. We’ll continue to take feedback through March 15 on asthma and March 19 on fibroids. Use the links to the right to see the workgroup presentations and webinar archives and find out how to provide input.

We hope you’ll join us as this process continues. Only with broad public participation can we be confident that the final research questions we consider for funding truly answer patients’ questions and reflect the community’s needs.

If you’ve not participated yet, start March 12, when our workgroup on Preventing Injuries from Falls in the Elderly gets together at PCORI’s offices. You can register here for the webinar and offer comments during the meeting via email and Twitter (#PCORI). In addition, you can submit feedback two weeks before and after each session. We’ve received valuable feedback already, including questions such as:

  • What role do medications -- either inappropriately prescribed, or improperly managed -- play in contributing to falls in older adults?
  • When I am not getting better with medical and physical therapy treatments for my low back pain, how do I know if I should have surgery?
  • What is the role of peak flow monitoring in addressing patient self-management and improved health outcomes for African-Americans with moderate to severe asthma?

These are just a few examples of the almost 100 suggestions that will help us focus on the research questions that matter most to patients and other stakeholders. As always, we’ll consider all of the input we receive as we develop targeted funding announcements to address these important health issues. You can learn more here about how we selected these topics and their associated workgroups.

Our last two workgroups, on Treatment Options for Back Pain and Obesity Treatment Options in Diverse Populations, will be held March 21 and April 16, respectively. We hope you can join us for our remaining workgroups and add your voice to those who are helping to guide our work.