DoD Peer Reviewed Cancer, Behavioral Health Science Award | W81XWH 22 PRCRP BHSA 2

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 22 PRCRP BHSA 2

The DoD Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) Behavioral Health Science Award (BHSA) is a Department of Defense funding opportunity designed to push forward high-impact, higher-risk behavioral health research connected to cancer. The focus is on the human side of cancer across diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship, especially where there are clear gaps in knowledge or care. Projects are expected to address one or more FY22 PRCRP Topic Areas while tackling behavioral health challenges such as quality of life, symptom management, resilience, neurocognitive changes, and psychosocial concerns that affect patients and also the people around them, including family members and caregivers. The intent is not just to describe problems, but to generate findings that can change how survivorship and behavioral health are understood and supported in real-world cancer care.

A central emphasis of this award is demonstrable impact on patient outcomes across the three survivorship phases: acute, extended, and permanent. Competitive applications need to make a strong case that the proposed work could meaningfully improve behavioral health or related cancer outcomes, challenge existing assumptions, and help move promising ideas closer to practical use. The program allows a range of approaches, including translational efforts and clinical research, and it can include pilot clinical trials when appropriate. In other words, the award is looking for studies that can accelerate the path from a good idea to something that influences clinical practice, supportive care, decision-making, or survivorship services.

The kinds of research encouraged under the BHSA are broad within behavioral health science, as long as they connect clearly to cancer. Examples include quality-of-life research, studies of decision-making and cognitive functioning, development and testing of educational or supportive interventions, and symptom management work that addresses issues like treatment toxicity, palliative care needs, distress, anxiety, and other psychological burdens. Applications may also focus on building evidence-based practices, developing behavioral health interventions and monitoring or surveillance approaches, and identifying meaningful psychosocial outcomes that can be measured and improved in defined patient populations. The opportunity explicitly supports research that examines how behavioral and social functioning relate to cancer initiation, progression, detection, treatment, and rehabilitation, which leaves room for both intervention studies and well-justified observational work tied to actionable outcomes.

Study design expectations are spelled out clearly. Applicants need to be explicit about the structure of the proposed research, whether it is descriptive, correlational, field experimental, meta-analytic, or based on prospective or retrospective recruitment. Populations must be clearly defined, and the design needs to be supported by a rationale that includes statistical considerations that justify the approach. If questionnaires or similar instruments are used, they must be described in enough detail that reviewers can judge whether the measures are appropriate and whether the results will be interpretable and useful.

Human-subject recruitment drives additional requirements around readiness. If a project proposes active (prospective) recruitment of human subjects for a pilot clinical trial, preliminary data are required. If the project does not involve active recruitment, preliminary data are not mandatory, but the application still needs to be grounded in strong logic and supported by relevant prior evidence from the literature or related work. This structure signals that the program is willing to fund early or emerging directions, but wants reassurance that clinical trial-style efforts have enough foundation to be feasible and informative.

A defining feature of this funding mechanism is the required, meaningful involvement of patient advocates. Every application must include at least one cancer patient advocate as an integrated member of the research team from planning through execution. The advocate may be someone currently living with cancer, a survivor with no evidence of disease, or a family member/caregiver. The advocate is expected to be active in a cancer advocacy organization and to contribute substantially to shaping the research question, informing study design, participating in oversight, and helping evaluate progress and relevance. The program is explicit that advocate engagement should be ongoing and woven into the project, not limited to occasional attendance at events or periodic meetings. Reviewers will look for a role that provides practical, objective input about patient needs and real-world impact, and at least one advocate should have strong familiarity with current issues in the selected FY22 PRCRP Topic Area(s).

The opportunity strongly discourages animal research. Animal studies are described as not appropriate for the Behavioral Health Science Award, and applications that include animal use risk being withdrawn. Even though the text notes that animal studies are not outright prohibited in every circumstance, it makes clear that proposing them would require unusually strong justification and still may jeopardize the application. In practice, the program is signaling that it prioritizes human-centered behavioral health science rather than animal models.

Administratively, this is a discretionary DoD opportunity managed by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA), under CFDA 12.420. The funding instrument can be a grant or cooperative agreement, eligibility is broadly open (unrestricted across entity types, subject to any additional eligibility language in the full announcement), and the posted forecast for this cycle anticipated about four awards. The original posting dates for this specific announcement show creation on August 4, 2022 and an original closing date of October 20, 2022, indicating it was part of the FY22 PRCRP competition cycle.

• 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 Peer Reviewed Cancer, Behavioral Health Science 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 Aug 04, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 20, 2022. (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 4 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.

Apply for W81XWH 22 PRCRP BHSA 2

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: