Lessons from comparative effectiveness research methods development projects funded under the Recovery Act

Abstract

Background: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) directed nearly US$29.2 million to comparative effectiveness research (CER) methods development.

Aim: To help inform future CER methods investments, we describe the ARRA CER methods projects, identify barriers to this research and discuss the alignment of topics with published methods development priorities.

Methods: We used several existing resources and held discussions with ARRA CER methods investigators.

Results & conclusion: Although funded projects explored many identified priority topics, investigators noted that much work remains. For example, given the considerable investments in CER data infrastructure, the methods development field can benefit from additional efforts to educate researchers about the availability of new data sources and about how best to apply methods to match their research questions and data.

Keywords: comparative effectiveness research; methods development; recovery act; research methods; research priorities.