Needs Assessment to identify priority health research areas for women and diverse members in the Canadian Armed Forces

Funding opportunity

Researchers are invited to apply for a new grant funding opportunity sponsored by Canadian Forces Health Services (CFHS) Director of Women and Diversity Health (D WDH) to conduct a Needs Assessment. The aim of this Needs Assessment is to identify priority health research areas for women and diverse members in the CAF, and to identify existing barriers to carrying out health research for these populations. This requires broad consultation with patients, partners and stakeholders, including Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) women and diverse members, CFHS, VAC and other federal partners, and academic researchers, among others. The Needs Assessment will include recommendations regarding how to address identified barriers, propose improvements that can be made to the research environment and propose high priority research topics for D WDH.

Anticipated timeline and budget

Background

Women and diverse populations have been historically under-researched in medicine, and this has limited our knowledge of their unique health needs, including health risks, prevention, and treatment options. For these reasons, CFHS established D WDH. The D WDH aims to optimize prevention and care for women and diverse members, using an intersectional lens to improve their physical, mental and psychosocial well-being. This is aligned with governmental priorities and current shifts in research.

This Needs Assessment is required to identify gaps and priority topics for health research in the military environment as well as to assist D WDH in identifying barriers that may exist with respect to carrying out health research focused on military women and diverse members.

Since the inception of the D WDH in 2022, the Directorate has focused on establishing relationships with stakeholders and partners to identify collaborative opportunities and minimize duplication of effort, as well as to begin to identify opportunities for high priority research. Broad consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and partners using an established Needs Assessment framework is required at this stage to ensure that the needs of all stakeholders and partners are considered, barriers to research are identified, and D WDH establishes a research program that is responsive, inclusive, and will deliver high quality research outcomes in the years to come.

Research objectives

This funding opportunity is seeking submissions from researchers to conduct a Needs Assessment. Researchers are expected to carry out broad consultation with a variety of stakeholders and partners, including CAF women and diverse members, as well as veterans, members of CFHS, both military and civilian, as well as partners from Veterans Affairs Canada, other federal government departments, and the broader academic research and health research community. Researchers should use established methods for a Needs Assessment, which may include focus groups and interviews, Delphi and modified Delphi technique, environmental and document scans, and literature reviews. Researchers should have previous experience with Needs Assessments or with some of these methods. The objective of this opportunity is to identify priority research areas for stakeholders and partners, and to assist D WDH in establishing research objectives going forward, as well as to identify barriers and gaps regarding the conduct of health research for serving women and diverse members.

The D WDH has identified areas of interest including menstrual health, reproductive health and occupational exposures, as well as health needs of 2SLGBTQI+ CAF members, however researchers are encouraged to explore and identify subcomponents of these and other priority areas of research and to include recommendations regarding priority topics in the Needs Assessment.

Desired outputs

• List of partners/stakeholders consulted.
• Summary of pertinent findings related to gaps in research and priority research areas for stakeholders and partners.
• Identify existing barriers to carrying out health research for serving women and diverse members.
• Identify gaps that exist between current research environment and ideal research environment regarding health research for women and diverse members.
• Priority areas of interest as stated above for D WDH include: menstrual health, reproductive health and occupational exposures, as well as health needs of BIPOC and 2SLGBTQI+ CAF members.
  • Researchers are encouraged to explore, identify and describe subcomponents of these areas and priority areas beyond those identified by D WDH.
• Comment on any additional considerations relevant to developing policy approach or strategy to optimize healthcare or wellness for women and diverse members.
• Follow SAGER guidelines.
• Produce a Needs Assessment Report that includes:
  • Executive Summary.
  • Introduction, Methods, Data analysis, Results and Discussion, Bibliography.
  • The report should include recommendations for research for the coming 2-5 years and ways to address any identified barriers for conducting health research and surveillance for women and diverse members in the CAF.
  • In the report, researchers should provide concrete input that includes the priority areas of interest, as described above, and how these can best be addressed through research and surveillance initiatives.
• Quarterly updates will be provided to D WDH.
• Virtual presentation of findings to project sponsor (may take place after the project end date).

Applicant qualifications and requirements for selection

• Principal investigator on the project must have a PhD in a relevant field.  
• All appropriate academic research guidelines must be followed, including, when required, a research ethics board approval from Defence Research Development Canada (DRDC) or any accredited academic institution in Canada. All documentation will be required prior to funding being issued.
• Approval from the Surgeon General Health Research Board is required. A CFHS point of contact will be provided to facilitate this process once the research proposals are selected.

Application deadline

Please download and submit the Research Funding Application form.

Enquiries

Questions about this funding opportunity can be sent to the VAC Research office at research-recherche@veterans.gc.ca.