Health Assessment Lab

Awards

The Board of Directors of the Health Assessment Laboratory (HAL) is pleased to announce the establishment of the Alvin R. Tarlov & John E. Ware Jr. Doctoral Dissertation Awards in Patient Reported Outcomes. The purpose of these awards is to encourage doctoral dissertations on patient reported outcomes. We envision up to five (5) awards being disseminated for the 2010 – 2011 academic year, with each award being for $25,000 ($20,000 made in September 2010, and an additional $5,000 upon receipt of a satisfactory progress report at the end of the academic year). Eligibility for the 2010-11 academic year is limited to U.S. citizens enrolled in U.S. based doctoral programs.

This award is named in honor of the Health Assessment Laboratory’s founders, Dr. Alvin Tarlov and Dr. John Ware, Jr. – two of the world’s leading pioneers in the development and use of patient reported outcome measures. The Health Assessment Lab is a free-standing not-for-profit organization with the goal of advancing the state-of-the-art tools for monitoring health care services and health outcomes from the patient/consumer point of view. Historically it has had four missions: development and validation of new measures; translation and adaptation of tools for use in international research; technical assistance in support of patient-based tools in a variety of specific applications; and education and training in psychometrics as applied to the health care field.

The Selection Committee for 2010-2011 is chaired by Professor Eugene Nelson, a HAL Board Member, and Director of the Population Health Measurement Program at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and Director of Quality Administration at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Other members of the selection committee include: Shelly Greenfield (UC -Irvine), Lewis Kazis (Boston U), Sherry Kaplan (UC-Irvine), Ed Perrin (U of Wash), Cathy Sherbourne (RAND), and Lisa Zubkoff (VA). Members of the selection committee will be required to recuse themselves from discussions and votes on any applicants from their home institution or any affiliated entities.

Applicants for 2010-2011 should submit:

1. CV (including contact info)
2. Name of degree granting institution and program, including contact information
3. Name and contact information of dissertation advisor
4. Two recommendations (including one from dissertation advisor)
5. 8-10 page narrative (excluding appendices) on the proposed dissertation, including the:

a. overall aims of proposed work
b. specific research questions
c. conceptual framework or model
d. proposed methods for work
e. importance or implications of using patient reported outcomes

Submit applications via email before midnight of August 1, 2010 to awards@hal-health.org. Any questions that arise should also be sent to awards@hal-health.org. We apologize for this required quick turnaround, but resources for supporting this initiative just became available.

Mike Zubkoff, President, Board of Directors, Health Assessment Laboratory
Eugene Nelson, Chair, Selection Committee, and Member, Board of Directors, HAL