Comparison of the occupational therapy research agenda with the National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research.

Jane Bear-Lehman, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, is Associate Professor and Department Chair, Department of Occupational Therapy, New York University, 35 West Fourth Street, New York, NY 10012; [email protected] A s a science-based health profession, occupational therapy involves the art and science of applying scientific knowledge to practice problems. Occupational therapy relies on the processes of applied scientific inquiry to translate knowledge from the basic sciences into clinical solutions to problems within our domain of concern. We call on basic science to inform our thinking and to gain an appreciation for and understanding of relevant practical problems. Occupational therapists are grounded in applied scientific inquiry because our raison d’être is to identify a course of action or to answer a specific question to satisfy a human need (Mosey, 1992). For the past 60 years, the steady growth in the amount of money available from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) can be credited with stimulating much of the progress in modern medicine. Most of the money, however, was directed toward basic scientific research; only a relatively insignificant amount was devoted to support applied research in the clinic or the community. More recently, a major change in funding priorities has occurred (Reis et al., 2010). Ten years ago, NIH began to closely examine many aspects of biomedical research efforts and has developed a series of new initiatives known as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research (Zerhouni, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010). This is a revolutionary change forNIH,marking a substantial increase in support for applied scientific inquiry. The NIH Roadmap outlines a broad translational research model designed to be more efficient and effective in opening bidirectional communication along two continua: (1) laboratory 4 clinic 4 community and (2) basic 4 applied scientific inquiry (Califf & Berglund, 2010; Woolf, 2008). These changes inNIH’s agenda give occupational therapy’s focus of inquiry greater support and more funding opportunities than ever before. Translational research models are a major element in the NIH Roadmap. These models are designed to transform knowledge of basic science into information that leads to effective solutions for practical, clinical problems with the goal of enhancing the health of individuals and society. Thus, it seems logical that the Occupational Therapy Research Agenda (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA] & American Occupational Therapy Foundation [AOTF], 2011) be as consistent as possible with the NIH Roadmap. The purpose of this article