The DRRC is a coalition of national non-profit
organizations committed to improving the state the science of rehabilitation
and disability. The DRRC seeks to maximize the return on the federal
investment in such research with the goal of improving the ability of
Americans with disabilities to live and function as independently as possible.
The Coalition plays a leadership role in increasing and leveraging federal
resources devoted to disability and rehabilitation research.
The DRRC makes the following recommendations for expanding
and improving future disability and rehabilitation research:
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Increase federal funding significantly in various
agencies performing rehabilitation and disability research.
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Elevate the status of the National Center for Medical
Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) within the National Institutes of Health.
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Clarify the National Institute for Disability and
Rehabilitation Research’s (NIDRR’s) role to include health and function
research as integrally related to employment and community participation
research, or Congress may want to consider moving the health and function
responsibilities to another agency.
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Create an Office of Disability and Health in the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Examine the role of the research programs within the
Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense (VA/DoD) and
enhance the interaction between these programs and civilian disability and
rehabilitation research capacity.
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Expand and improve the authority of Interagency
Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) to coordinate disability and
rehabilitation research among the federal agencies.
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Develop a comprehensive government-wide strategic plan
for disability and rehabilitation research.
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Develop government-wide methods for identifying
disability and rehabilitation research as well as subtopics (e.g., studies of
body structure/functional deficits, activities, participation, capacity
building activities, treatment and service effectiveness research) so that the
magnitude and trends in disability and rehabilitation research across various
agencies can be tracked.
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Develop guiding principles for conducting disability and
rehabilitation research.
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Support a research agenda-setting summit bringing
together policymakers, representatives from federal agencies, non-governmental
funders of rehabilitation research, and organizations representing
researchers, providers, and individuals with disabilities. The agenda should
include consideration of the recommendations by Institute of Medicine (IOM) in
the 1991, 1997 and 2007 reports on disability and the recommendations of the
Rehabilitation Medicine Summit: Building Research Capacity (April 2005), as
well as a review of the progress the nation has made in implementing these
recommendations.
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Expand support for efficacy studies documenting the
benefit (including cost-benefit) of rehabilitation services, supports,
treatments, and devices, including support for large scale randomized clinical
trials (where appropriate).
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Support efforts to enhance knowledge transfer so that
research is more efficiently translated to practice in the rehabilitation and
disability fields.
