Investigators interested in obtaining further information on collaborative research within the Millennium Cohort Study of Adolescent Resilience (SOAR) are invited to contact [email protected]@health.mil.

Millenium Cohort Family Study (Family Study), and the Study of Adolescent Resilience (SOAR). The MCP is a Department of Defense (DoD) research program primarily funded by the Defence Health Agency. The MCP research teams are centrally located at the DoD Center for Deployment Health at the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) in San Diego, California. However, MCP also includes representatives at Uniformed Services University and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the program has long-standing collaborations with academic and private research organizations througout the country.

Formal guidelines for collaborative research within SOAR are available upon request. Briefly, research proposals are reviewed and approved by an oversight committee to ensure alignment with the study's objectives. The overall objective of SOAR is to determine if and how, military life affects the psychological and physical health, academic achievement, and educational and career goals of adolescents.

Requests for collaboration by researchers must be made in writing, in the form of a pre-proposal (see pre-proposal application requirements below), to the SOAR principal investigator (PI) who will serve as the point of contact for all collaborative research. Proposed projects must be 1) feasible, 2) of substantial scientific and military interest and merit, and 3) novel. Further, reasons for proposing the use of the SOAR data, rather than another data source, must be clearly outlined, and the proposed study cannot be currently in progress using the SOAR data. Of note, studies that involve information beyond that currently available within the SOAR Study database are rarely considered as it is vital for the full Cohort to be protected from the introduction of bias by secondary research investigations. Additionally, the source of funding of the proposed work should be included within the pre-proposal.

Once the pre-proposal application is received:

1. The pre-proposal will be formally reviewed by the Study's oversight committee.
2. The applicant will be requested to submit a full proposal (see full-proposal application requirements below) if pre-proposal is approved by the committee.
3. A decision regarding the use of the SOAR data for the proposed research will be provided to the requesting investigator. If the full proposal is approved, applicants will be asked to complete forms required for IRB approval, data use sharing agreements and funding (e.g., Data Use Agreement, Business Associate Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding).

Additional requirements:

Before research commences, a full proposal must be formally approved and all IRB approvals, data use sharing agreements, and funding must be in place. External collaborators will work with at least one of the SOAR investigators and PI, who will serve as members of the study team. Because of the complexity of the dataset and SOAR investigators' knowledge of the strengths and limitations of these data, input from the NHRC study team is compulsory to ensure both the validity and maximal use of the data. All research findings, including in the form of presentations and publications, require review and approval by NHRC and the Department of the Navy prior to release.

For further questions, investigators are invited to contact [email protected].

Pre-Proposal Application Requirements

The Pre-proposal is an approximate three to five page synopsis of the proposed study and will include the following elements:

1. General Information
   1. Initiating investigator(s), analyst(s), collaborator(s) involved (including CV/biosketch)
   2. Project title
   3. Brief background/introduction and rationale (include statement on the use of Millennium Cohort data versus another dataset)
   4. Brief description of methods and study population
   5. Objectives
   6. Outcomes
   7. Independent variables of interest
   8. Military relevance
   9. Source of funding
2. References

Full Proposal Guidelines

The full proposal is a longer, more descriptive document (10-15 pages) of the proposed study and will include the following elements:

1. General Information
   1. Initiating investigator(s), collaborator(s), and site(s) involved
   2. Project title
   3. Planned start and end dates; timeline with milestones
   4. Human subjects protection issues
2. Design and Methods
   1. Brief background and rationale
   2. Military relevance
   3. Research question(s) or hypotheses
   4. Specific aims
   5. Specific methods
   6. Specific outcomes and variables of interest
   7. Sample size and statistical power matrix (if needed)
   8. Participant burden (including time and/or discomfort)
   9. Potential impact on the full Millennium Cohort Study and NHRC team
   10. Mechanisms for data security, confidentiality, and informed consent
3. References
4. Source(s) of Funding and Budget