ADVANCE: Armed Services Trauma Rehabilitation Outcome Study

Overview

Aims
The Armed Services Trauma Rehabilitation Outcome (ADVANCE) Study is a prospective longitudinal cohort study investigating the long-term physical and psychosocial outcomes of UK military personnel who sustained severe combat-related trauma during the Afghanistan conflict. ADVANCE aims to study the incidence of a wide variety of outcomes, including cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disease, mental health, functional and social outcomes, quality of life, employment, and mortality. Data is collected using various methods, including self-report questionnaires and clinical assessments.

Institution
Academic Department of Military Rehabilitation (Ministry of Defence); Imperial College London; King’s College London.

Geographic coverage - Nations
England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland
Some participants now reside outside of the United Kingdom (e.g., South Africa, North America)

Geographic coverage - Regions
Nationwide

Start date
2015

Catalogue record last updated
30/04/2025

Sample

Sample type
Cohort study; Occupational cohort

Sample details
Participants are serving and former UK military personnel who deployed on combat operations to Afghanistan between 2003 and 2014. Half are personnel who sustained combat trauma; a comparison group of the same size has been frequency matched based on deployment to Afghanistan, age, sex, service, regiment, rank, and role-in-theatre.

Participants were initially identified through various tracking systems and databases before being recruited through postal mailouts, e-mail invitations and telephone calls, and where necessary traced via Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) contacts, if still serving, and through electoral roll data, social media or advertising via military charities. Participants will be followed up after baseline data collection (Follow Up 0) at regular intervals, and this cohort are currently being followed up for the second time (Follow Up 2).

Sample size at recruitment
1,145 participants total
579 injured personnel, 565 comparison group

Sample size at most recent sweep
1,053 participants total (2023 - Follow Up 1)
526 injured personnel, 527 comparison group

Sex
Men only

Age at recruitment
18-50 years (age at sampling)

Cohort year of birth
Varied

Data

Data access
Contact study team by emailing adv_data_team@imperial.ac.uk to express an interest in accessing the data

Genetic data collected

Linkage to administrative data
Health data

Other useful resources

Key Papers

Study protocol for a prospective, longitudinal cohort study investigating the medical and psychosocial outcomes of UK combat casualties from the Afghanistan war: the ADVANCE Study.
doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-037850

A full list of publications using ADVANCE data can be found on the study website:
advancestudydmrc.org.uk/publications/