DOD Lung Cancer, Patient-Centered Outcomes and Survivorship Award | HT9425 23 LCRP PCOSA

Opportunity Information: Apply for HT9425 23 LCRP PCOSA

The DOD Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP) Patient-Centered Outcomes and Survivorship Award (PCOSA) is a FY23 funding mechanism from the Department of Defense (administered through the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, USAMRAA) that focuses on improving the real-world experience and outcomes of people affected by lung cancer. Offered for the first time in FY23, PCOSA is positioned to back high-risk, high-reward projects that move beyond traditional lab or drug-development questions and instead center on what patients and families actually live through during and after lung cancer care. The goal is to generate evidence that can meaningfully improve patient-centered outcomes, survivorship, and the overall quality and delivery of lung cancer care in specific populations.

At its core, PCOSA supports research spanning behavioral health science, survivorship, health outcomes, and comparative effectiveness research. The program is interested in the full set of physical, psychological, social, and economic effects that lung cancer can have on patients and their families, including issues like resilience, co-morbid conditions, and the management of symptoms and treatment side effects. The intent is to promote evidence-based, patient-centered approaches that improve lung cancer-related outcomes and enhance the patient experience, with an emphasis on producing results that can inform practice, guidelines, and care delivery.

The types of studies encouraged under this award are broad, as long as they clearly connect back to patient-centered outcomes. Examples include projects that examine and improve quality of life, shared decision-making, and symptom or side-effect management, including topics such as treatment toxicity, palliative or supportive care, psychological distress, and anxiety. The opportunity also welcomes studies that evaluate how prevention strategies, diagnostic approaches, treatment pathways, or health care delivery models influence outcomes. Another area of interest is research on how behavioral, cognitive, and social functioning relate to lung cancer detection, initiation, progression, treatment, and rehabilitation. PCOSA also explicitly calls for studies that address psychological health and well-being among people affected by lung cancer, including family members, and for the development and efficacy testing of lifestyle interventions and symptom management strategies designed to reduce risk and maximize quality of life.

Several features define what a competitive PCOSA application is expected to look like. First is impact: projects should have a credible path to making a major difference in patient outcomes and should be willing to challenge existing paradigms around lung cancer care and survivorship. The program allows for translational and clinical research, including pilot clinical trials, particularly when those studies help accelerate promising ideas into practical clinical applications, strengthen clinical guidance, or substantially advance understanding of behavioral, cognitive, or social factors affecting the target population.

Second is study design rigor and clarity. Applicants are expected to clearly explain the architecture of their study, whether it is descriptive, correlational, field experimental, meta-analytic, or otherwise, and to define the study population in a way that matches the research question. The rationale for the chosen design should be supported with appropriate statistical reasoning, and if questionnaires or patient-reported outcome measures are used, they should be described in enough detail that reviewers can understand how results will be interpreted. Even when a project is more basic or foundational, it still needs to connect back to the human experience of lung cancer and demonstrate feasibility and a coherent strategy.

Third is the preliminary data expectation. PCOSA requires preliminary data for any study proposing active (prospective) recruitment of human subjects. For studies that do not involve active recruitment, preliminary data are not strictly required, but applicants are still expected to justify feasibility through strong scientific reasoning and relevant supporting literature. In other words, the program is open to bold ideas, but it still expects applicants to show that the project can realistically be executed and will yield interpretable findings.

A notable feature of this award is the strong encouragement to include a patient advocate as part of the research team. The patient advocate is expected to be a lung cancer survivor or someone with a history of lung cancer diagnosis and to be active in a cancer advocacy organization. This role is not meant to be symbolic; the advocate should be integrated into the project in a consistent, ongoing way and contribute to meaningful aspects of the work such as shaping the research question, informing project design, supporting recruitment and retention approaches, participating in oversight, and helping evaluate the relevance and potential real-world impact of the research. The emphasis is on objective, practical input that keeps the research grounded in patient needs and priorities.

PCOSA is also explicitly tied to military health relevance, reflecting the LCRP mission under the Defense Health Program. Reviewers will consider how well the proposed research aligns with the needs of Service Members, Veterans, and their families. Applicants are encouraged to demonstrate this relevance by using military or Veteran populations, biospecimens, or data resources; collaborating with DOD or VA investigators; or addressing lung cancer risks and experiences that may be particularly relevant to military communities, including environmental or occupational exposures beyond tobacco and issues connected to family readiness and beneficiary health within the Military Health System.

From an administrative standpoint, this opportunity is listed as Funding Opportunity Number HT9425 23 LCRP PCOSA under CFDA 12.420, categorized as discretionary research and development funding. The funding instruments include grants and cooperative agreements. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to many entity types, subject to any additional eligibility language in the full announcement). For the FY23 cycle reflected in the source information, the opportunity was created April 13, 2023, with an original closing date of August 10, 2023, and it anticipated making about two awards. The award ceiling is listed as 0 in the provided record, which typically signals that the ceiling may be defined elsewhere in the full solicitation or depends on programmatic decisions rather than being captured in the summary field.

Overall, the PCOSA mechanism is best understood as a DOD lung cancer research funding route for teams that want to produce patient-centered, practice-relevant evidence about survivorship, quality of life, and the lived experience of lung cancer, while maintaining strong methodological discipline and clearly articulating how the work will translate into meaningful improvements for defined populations, including those connected to the military and Veteran communities.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DOD Lung Cancer, Patient-Centered Outcomes and Survivorship Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 13, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 10, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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