Program Name | Operating Source | Objectivea |
Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Centers (MIRECCs) | ||
Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Centers (MIRECCs) | Department of Veternas Affairs (VA) | MIRECCs were established by Congress to generate new knowledge about the causes and treatments of mental disorders through research, apply new findings to model clinical programs, and widely disseminate new findings through education to improve the quality of veterans’ lives and their daily functioning as they recover from mental illness. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 1 MIRECC: Dual Diagnosis | VA VA Connecticut Healthcare System | The mission of the New England MIRECC is to improve services for veterans with histories of mental illness in combination with addiction problems. These veterans have unique needs, because having two types of illness makes it more difficult to recover from either one. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 3 MIRECC: Serious Mental Illnesses | VA James J. Peters VA Medical Center | The focus of this MIRECC is to maximize recovery for veterans with serious mental illnesses by bringing research into practice. The goal of identifying the causes and most effective treatments for serious mental illnesses is accomplished through collaborations in four core domains: research, education, clinical interventions, and evaluation. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 4 MIRECC: Comorbidity of psychiatric disorders with physical illness and/or substance use disorders | VA Philadelphia VA Medical Center and VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System | The focus of the center is the treatment and prevention of comorbid medical, mental health, and/or substance use disorders, with the aim of improving the mental and physical health, quality of life, and outcomes of health care services for veterans with mental illness. This is accomplished through translational neuroscience, other clinical research, and health services research; education and training programs; clinical programs built on research findings; and involvement of 10 VA medical centers. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 5 MIRECC: Severe and Persistent Mental Illnesses | VA VA Maryland Health Care System | The purpose of the VA Capitol Healthcare Network MIRECC is to develop a center for research, training, and service for veterans with schizophrenia and their families. Their work, particularly in regard to substance abuse, and mental health service systems and health care economics, extends to veterans with other severe and persistent mental illnesses as well. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 6 MIRECC: Post-Deployment Mental Illness | VA Durham VA Medical Center | The Mid-Atlantic MIRECC is organized as a translational medicine center in which the overarching goal is the clinical assessment and treatment of post-deployment mental illness and related problems, and the development of novel mental health interventions through basic and clinical research. This MIRECC aims to (1) determine whether early intervention in postdeployment mental health is effective in forestalling the development or decreasing the severity of postdeployment mental illness, (2) determine what neuroimaging, genetic, neurocognitive, or other characteristics predict the development of postdeployment mental illness, and (3) assess the longitudinal course of postdeployment mental illness. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 16 MIRECC: Serving Rural and Other Underserved Populations | VA The MIRECC has anchor sites at five medical centers in Houston, Jackson, Little Rock, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City |
The South Central MIRECC’s organizational structure includes four major components: research, education, improving clinical care, and research training. It aims to improve access to evidence-based practices in rural and other underserved populations, especially for returning war veterans, veterans experiencing natural disasters, and vulnerable elderly veterans. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
Program Name | Operating Source | Objectivea |
VISN 19 MIRECC: Suicide Prevention | VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System |
The mission is to study suicide with the goal of reducing suicidality in the veteran population. To carry out this mission, members of the Rocky Mountain Network MIRECC: (1) focus on cognitive and neurobiological underpinnings that may contribute to suicidality; (2) develop evidence-based educational and clinical materials to identify and optimally treat veterans who are suicidal; (3) provide consultation regarding assessment and treatment planning for highly suicidal veterans; (4) mentor researchers in the area of suicidology; and (5) collaborate with others in the study and treatment of veterans who are at risk of suicide. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 20 MIRECC: Schizophrenia, PTSD and Dementia | VA VA Puget Sound Health Care System |
The Northwest MIRECC applies modern genetic, neurobiological, and clinical trial methodology to the discovery and development of new and more effective treatments for major and often treatment-resistant mental disorders afflicting veterans and the active-duty combat personnel. Translational research efforts focus on treatment for PTSD and its substance abuse comorbidities (alcohol and tobacco); the chronic behavioral consequences of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its objective diagnosis through biomarkers; elderly veterans with agitated dementia; and schizophrenia and the adverse metabolic consequences of antipsychotic drug therapy. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 21 MIRECC: PTSD and Dementia | VA Palo Alto VA Health Care System |
The mission of the Sierra Pacific MIRECC is to build an integrated system of clinical, research, and educational efforts to improve the clinical care for veterans with dementias and PTSD. Dementia and PTSD share common clinical symptoms, including cognitive difficulties, sleep disorders, and agitation. This MIRECC aims to evaluate current approaches and develop new treatments for these clinical problems. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 22 MIRECC: Psychotic Disorders | VA Long Beach VA Healthcare System, Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System, San Diego VA Healthcare System |
The mission of the Desert Pacific MIRECC is to improve the long-term functional outcome of patients with chronic psychotic mental disorders, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and psychotic mood disorders. We approach this mission through an integrated program of research, education, and clinical programs aimed at translating findings from the research laboratory into improved clinical care. The program spans the spectrum from basic brain biology to the organization of services for veterans. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VA Centers of Excellence (CoEs) | ||
VISN 2: Integrated Health | VA Syracuse VA Medical Center |
The center’s principal focus is on colocated collaborative care where mental health providers (psychologists, social workers, or psychiatric prescribers) work side by side with medical primary care providers. The center works collaboratively with other VA centers that specialize in care management of mental health disorders to successfully blend the two components. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 2: Suicide Prevention | VA Canandaigua VA Medical Center |
The Suicide Prevention center is organized as a prevention and research center with the overarching goal of reducing the morbidity and mortality in the veteran population associated with suicide. To this end, the center’s mission is to develop and study veteran-focused, evidenced-based, public health approaches to suicide prevention with broadly based population level interventions designed to reach all veterans, and targeted approaches to reach subpopulations of veterans at high risk for suicidal behaviors. This center seeks to meet this mission through serving as a national, regional, and local resource on suicide research and prevention and mental health through two key cores: the Epidemiology and Interventions Research Core and the Education, Training and Dissemination Core. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
Program Name | Operating Source | Objectivea |
VISN 17: Returning War Vets | VA Waco VA Medical Center, Texas |
The Center for Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans focuses on mental health/PTSD needs and enables VA to consolidate personnel, training, and specialized resources in an efficient manner to improve knowledge related to treatment, prevention, rehabilitation, and clinical services for veterans, with a particular focus on those veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
VISN 22: Stress and Mental Health | VA VA San Diego Healthcare System |
This center consists of a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, educators, and researchers whose goal is to understand, prevent, and heal the effects of stress. Source/Program website: http://www.mirecc.va.gov/national-mirecc-overview.asp |
National Center for PTSD | VA | The mission is to advance the clinical care and social welfare of America’s veterans through research, education, and training in the science, diagnosis, and treatment of PTSD and stress-related disorders. The National Center has emerged as the world’s leading research and educational center of excellence on PTSD. Its vision is to be the foremost leader in information on PTSD and trauma; information generated internally through its extensive research program; and information synthesized from published scientific research and collective clinical experience that is efficiently disseminated to the field. The center is organized to facilitate rapid translation of science into practice, ensuring that the latest research findings inform clinical care, and translation of practice into science, assuring that questions raised by clinical challenges are addressed using rigorous experimental protocols. The National Center provides a unique infrastructure within which to implement multidisciplinary initiatives regarding the etiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of PTSD. Source/Program website: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/index.asp |
Department of Defense (DoD) Centers of Excellence (CoE) | ||
Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) | DoD | DCoE oversees three centers, each of which contributes unique insights, standards, clinical tools, and research products to the fields of psychological health and TBI: the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, the Deployment Health Clinical Center, and the National Center for Telehealth and Technology. (Budget: $168 million in 2010) Source/Program website: http://www.dcoe.health.mil/About_DCoE/Centers.aspx |
National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) | DoD Located on the campus of Naval Support Activity Bethesda, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center |
NICoE is the military health system institute for complex, comorbid TBI and psychological health conditions. It delivers comprehensive and holistic care, conducts focused research, and exports knowledge to benefit service members, their families, and society. The mission of the NICoE is to be a leader in advancing TBI and psychological health treatment, research, and education. This overarching mission is accomplished through three primary categories of activity: research, clinical, and education. (Budget: $20.3 million in FY2010) Source/Program website: http://www.nicoe.capmed.mil/About%20Us/SitePages/Home.aspx |
Other | ||
VA Cooperative Studies Program | VA Office of Research & Development |
This program is responsible for the planning and conduct of large multicenter clinical trials and epidemiological studies in VA. Its mission is to advance the health and care of veterans through cooperative research studies that produce innovative and effective solutions to veteran and national health care problems. Source/Program website: http://www.research.va.gov/programs/csp. |
Program Name | Operating Source | Objectivea |
NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative | National Institutes of Health (NIH) | The BRAIN Initiative is part of a new presidential focus aimed at revolutionizing understanding of the human brain. By accelerating the development and application of innovative technologies, researchers will be able to produce a revolutionary new dynamic picture of the brain that, for the first time, shows how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. Long desired by researchers seeking new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders, this picture will fill major gaps in the current knowledge and provide unprecedented opportunities for exploring exactly how the brain enables the human body to record, process, utilize, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information, all at the speed of thought. (Budget: Approx. $100 million total; NIH: $40 million; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: $50 million; National Science Foundation: $20 million; plus more than $120 million from private-sector partners) Source/Program website: http://www.nih.gov/science/brain |
South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience (STRONG STAR) | DoD Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio |
STRONG STAR is a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research consortium to develop and evaluate the most effective early interventions possible for the detection, prevention, and treatment of combat-related PTSD in active-duty military personnel and recently discharged veterans. The STRONG STAR Consortium brings together the expertise of military, civilian, and VA institutions and investigators and one of the largest populations of active-duty and recently discharged combat veterans in the nation. STRONG STAR investigators hope to improve countless lives by preventing the development of chronic PTSD in a new generation of veterans. (Budget: $35 million) Source/Program website: http://delta.uthscsa.edu/strongstar/about.asp |
Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS) | National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the U.S. Army | Army STARRS is the largest study of mental health risk and resilience ever conducted among military personnel. Army STARRS investigators are using five separate study components—the Historical Administrative Data Study, New Soldier Study, All Army Study, Soldier Health Outcomes Study, and |
Special Studies—to identify factors that help protect a soldier’s mental health and factors that put a soldier’s mental health at risk. Army STARRS is a 5-year study and will run through June 2014. Findings will be reported as they become available, so that the Army may apply them to its ongoing health promotion, risk reduction, and suicide prevention efforts. (Budget: $50 million) Source/Program website: http://www.armystarrs.org/about |
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Injury and Traumatic Stress (INTRuST) PTSD and TBI Clinical Consortium | University of California, San Diego | The overarching goal is to combine the efforts of the nation’s leading investigators to bring to market novel treatments or interventions that will ultimately decrease the impact of military-relevant psychological health problems and TBI. The program hopes to improve the function, wellness, and overall quality of life for service members, as well as their families, caregivers, and the American public. INTRuST is a collaboration of numerous investigators and 10 clinical sites poised to conduct clinical trials of novel treatments for military-relevant PTSD and TBI. (Budget: $90 million) Source/Program website: http://intrust.sdsc.edu |
Consortium to Alleviate PTSD | DoD and VA, led by the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio | Key priorities of this consortium are elucidation of factors that influence the different trajectories (onset/progression/duration) of PTSD and associated chronic mental and physical sequelae (including depression, anger/aggression, and substance use/abuse, etc.) and identification of measures for determining who is likely to develop chronic PTSD. The consortium works to improve prognostics, advance treatments, and mitigate negative long-term consequences associated with traumatic exposure. Focused scientific efforts to understand and treat PTSD have been supported by DoD and VA. (Budget: $45.336 million) Source/Program website: http://www.ConsortiumToAlleviatePTSD.com |
Program Name | Operating Source | Objectivea |
Northern California Institute for Research and Education, Inc. –The Veterans Health Research Institute | Self-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit); operates on the campus of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center University of California, San Francisco | The Veterans Health Research Institute is the leading nonprofit research institute in the United States devoted to advancing veteran health research. Northern California Institute for Research and Education pioneers new treatments and understanding of military medicine and care. Through new technologies, novel scientific insights, and international clinical collaborations, they strive to set a new standard of health care for veterans and military personnel. They provide care for veterans; discover and develop effective, safe, and practical treatments for military injuries and diseases, and deploy them worldwide; train new researchers in veteran health; and prepare new generations of providers to care for veterans in the years to come. (Budget: $50 million) Source/Program website: https://www.ncire.org/about_ncire |
Millennium Cohort Study | DoD Headquartered at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California |
The Millennium Cohort Study is the largest prospective health project in military history. It is designed to evaluate the long-term health effects of military service, including deployments. DoD recognized after the 1991 Gulf War that there was a need to collect more information about the long-term health of service members. The Millennium Cohort Study was designed to address that critical need, and the study was launched by 2001. Funded by DoD and supported by military, VA, and civilian researchers, it already involves almost 150,000 people. As force health protection continues to be a priority for the future of the U.S. military, the Millennium Cohort Study will be providing critical information towards enhancing the long-term health of future generations of military members. Source/Program website: http://www.millenniumcohort.org/aboutstudy.php |
Million Veteran Program | VA Office of Research & Development |
The goal of the Million Veteran Program is to partner with veterans receiving their care in the VA health care system to study how genes affect health. To do this, it will build one of the world’s largest medical databases by safely collecting blood samples and health information from one million veteran volunteers. Data will be stored anonymously for research on diseases like diabetes and cancer and military-related illnesses, such as PTSD. Source/Program website: http://www.research.va.gov/mvp |
Military Suicide Research Consortium | DoD Florida State University and the Denver VA Medical Center |
As part of DoD’s comprehensive suicide prevention strategy, the Military Suicide Research Consortium, will research the causes and prevention of suicide. Its research will assist in the development of more effective prevention interventions, risk assessment methods, and treatments to decrease the number of suicides. Findings will provide the scientific basis for suicide prevention policy recommendations and clinical practice guidelines. (Budget: $30 million) Source/Program website: https://msrc.fsu.edu/about-msrc |
aText in the Objective column is pulled from the Source/Program website listed and may be verbatim.