Welcome to the ADVANCE Study

The ArmeD SerVices TrAuma and RehabilitatioN OutComE (ADVANCE) study investigates both the physical and psycho-social outcomes of battlefield casualties. It is a collaboration between the Academic Department of Military Rehabilitation (ADMR, Stanford Hall), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

Due to the world-leading battlefield trauma care provided by the UK Defence Medical Services, there was a significant increase in the survival rates of severely injured military personnel who served in the Afghanistan War of 2002-2014. This necessitated a comprehensive long-term study of the surviving casualties. Previous studies into war veterans have been done involving military personnel from the Vietnam and World Wars; they were of retrospective or cross-sectional design. However, the ADVANCE study is a longitudinal cohort study which investigates, prospectively, the incidence of a very wide variety of physical and psycho-social outcomes which will facilitate learning for future conflicts and enable appropriate support to be given to injured service personnel and their families.

Between 2016-2020 we recruited serving and ex-serving military personnel who sustained a combat injury in the Afghanistan War and a comparator group who did not sustain injury but were also deployed. If we can compare the effect of ‘deployment and combat injury’ versus ‘deployment only’, we can investigate the effect of the combat injury. We are currently following up on this cohort for the second time since they were recruited. Full details on what information we gather from our participants at each follow up can be found in our study protocol paper published in 2020, here.

We are very grateful to all our funders who have made this study possible. You can find more information about the ADVANCE charity and the support from all our funders here.