PCORI: Improving Health Decision Making with Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research: Retrospective Observational Studies Leveraging Existing Data Sources

If you are interested in the following opportunity, please contact Carole King at carole.king@med.usc.edu.

• LOI due: January 1, 2026
• Budget: up to $2,000,000 (plus 40% indirects)
• Project period: 18 months

PCORI seeks well-designed retrospective observational patient-centered CER studies using existing data sources.  The research goal is to generate timely, impactful CER evidence to guide healthcare decisions, complement RCTs, and assess long-term effects and real-world outcomes.

• Studies should leverage established data sources (e.g., PCORnet®) to compare existing interventions in real-world settings.
• Both clinical interventions (medications, procedures, diagnostics) and delivery system interventions (healthcare workforce, technologies, service designs) are eligible.
• Studies should address at least one PCORI-approved topic: cancer, intellectual/developmental disabilities, maternal health, mental/behavioral health, metabolic/endocrine health, pain, rare diseases, sensory health, or substance use.

Key Features:

• Focus on patient-centered, clinically meaningful outcomes.
• Support longer-term follow-up (>5 years) and evaluation of treatment heterogeneity.
• Encourage state-of-the-art causal inference methods and multi-site data for generalizable results.
• Only studies using existing, ready-to-analyze data are eligible; new data networks, registries, or linkages are not supported.