Skip to main content
Roundtable/Forum

Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury convenes leaders across TBI prevention, care, research, and lived experience to advance recommendations from the report Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress (NASEM 2022), foster progress in understanding TBI and enhancing prevention, diagnosis, care and recovery, and identify opportunities for collective action. The Forum addresses topics relating to critical research gaps, the complexity of the systems involved in TBI treatment and rehabilitation, the challenge of coordination across the lifecycle, and other needs and challenges facing those involved in this field.

In progress

Any project, supported or not by a committee, that is currently being worked on or is considered active, and will have an end date.

Forum-TBI-Hero-1800x680px-1.jpg | https://nasemoceprodcomm-nationalacademies.cec.ocp.oraclecloud.com/content/published/api/v1.1/assets/CONT07869FBAC55E477DBEC5827D71E32AB6/native?cb=_cache_daba&format=webp&channelToken=d2dc71410b56f1d61406108f1738d0f4

"Fostering understanding and action to advance traumatic brain injury (TBI) prevention, research, care, and recovery across the lifespan."

Open until December 2, 2025, 12:00 AM EST
Call for Experts
We invite you to submit suggestions for experts to participate in this activity.
Core Themes
Research and Innovation

The forum facilitates the scientific understanding of TBI as a complex condition and identifies opportunities to advance pre-clinical, clinical, and population health research to improve TBI prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and long-term management.

Relevant work:

• 
Biomarkers for Traumatic Brain Injury: Proceedings of a Workshop

  Examples of Technical Innovation for Traumatic Brain Injury Prevention, Diagnosis, and Care: Proceedings of a Workshop

Exploring Risks of Repeated Head Impacts in Youth and Strategies to Minimize Exposure: A Workshop

Learning Care Systems

The forum examines learning health systems and structures as enablers of improved patient and family outcomes. Learning systems and structures support continuous improvement in response to emerging evidence and best practices. The forum also explores the benefits of integrating data collection, analysis, and sharing within and across health care systems and settings.

Relevant work:

•  Data Integration in Learning Health Care Systems for Traumatic Brain Injury: Proceedings of a Workshop

•  Improving Systems of Follow-Up Care for Traumatic Brain Injury: Proceedings of a Workshop

TBI as a Public Health Challenge

Causes as diverse as falls, sports injuries, vehicle collisions, military incidents, interpersonal violence, and more can result in TBI across a spectrum of severity, affecting all ages and communities.

The forum reflects an understanding of TBI as a public health challenge with broad societal and economic impacts and explores approaches and strategies to reduce the incidence and severity of TBI, particularly in at-risk populations.

Enhancing Care and Education

The forum recognizes the need for patient-centered and evidence-based care and education to address the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social needs of individuals with TBI and their families/caregivers across the continuum of care.

Relevant work:

•  Action Collaborative on Traumatic Brain Injury Care 

 Examining Traumatic Brain Injury as a Chronic Condition: A Workshop

Our mission

In 2022, the National Academies released "Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress". The report examines unmet needs across TBI assessment, care, rehabilitation, and recovery and offers recommendations to address gaps, accelerate research progress, and improve care systems. Shortly after its release, the National Academies launched the Forum on TBI, which aims to:

  • Advance the report’s recommendations,

  • Foster collaboration across the multidisciplinary TBI community,

  • Spur continued progress in understanding, preventing, and treating TBI,

  • Inspire action to improve research and care systems along the full continuum of care, rehabilitation, and return, and

  • Inform policy dialogues and priority setting.

Leadership

The forum catalyzes multi-disciplinary relationships and cross-sector collaboration. Its membership includes TBI subject-matter experts and thought leaders from government, academia, industry, professional associations, and patient advocacy groups. Forum members work together to share perspectives that contribute to a nuanced and multi-faceted understanding of critical gaps in TBI prevention, research, and systems of care. View committee.

Forum-TBI-Leadership-680x405px.jpg
How We Work

National Academies forums create environments to facilitate collaboration and dialogue among a variety of sectors and disciplines. Forum activities illuminate key issues and opportunities for further work by hosting stakeholder meetings, convening public workshops, and generating peer-reviewed publications. While forums do not issue conclusions and recommendations like consensus study committees do, they can host Action Collaboratives that create spaces for experts to convene, converse, and publish papers and commentaries independent of the National Academies.

The Forum on TBI is associated with the Action Collaborative on TBI, which seeks to develop and validate evidence-based outpatient care systems for community-acquired TBI. Learn more about the National Academies' study process.

Work with Us

The forum is always seeking to engage with new collaborators and sponsors.

Contact Katie Bowman to learn more:

Forum-TBI-Work-With-Us-680x405px.jpg

Description

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will establish a Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The Forum on TBI will:

  • Foster multi-disciplinary relationships and cross-sector collaboration across the diverse TBI stakeholder community;
  • Spur continued progress and innovation in the scientific and clinical understanding of TBI and its prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment;
  • Inspire action to improve TBI research and care systems along the full continuum from prevention through acute care, rehabilitation, and return; and
  • Inform policy dialogues and priority setting to advance TBI research and care.

The Forum will meet two-three times per year to provide an ongoing mechanism and a neutral setting in which the full spectrum of public and private sector experts and stakeholders can explore opportunities for collective action and address emerging issues important to short- and long-term strategic planning for advancing TBI research and care. Topics may include issues related to current research gaps, the complexity of the systems involved in TBI treatment and rehabilitation, the challenge of coordination, and the wide range of related needs and challenges facing stakeholders in this field.

All activities of the Forum will be conducted in accordance with institutional guidelines described in “Roundtables: Policy and Procedures.”

Collaborators

Committee

Co-Chair

Co-Chair

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Ex Officio Member

Joe Brennan

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Ex Officio Member

Sponsors

AARP Foundation

Abbott Laboratories

American Academy of Neurology

American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

American Association of Neurological Surgeons

American College of Surgeons

American Occupational Therapy Association

American Physical Therapy Association

Brain Injury Association of America

BrainScope Company, Inc.

Cohen Veterans Bioscience

Concussion Legacy Foundation

Department of Defense

Department of Veterans Affairs

Emergency Nurses Association

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Marcus Foundation

National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians

National Association of State Head Injury Administrators

National Collegiate Athletic Association

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

National Institute on Aging

National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research

National Neurotrauma Society

Toyota Motor North America

Staff

Katherine Bowman

Lead

Ashley Bologna

Subscribe to Email from the National Academies
Keep up with all of the activities, publications, and events by subscribing to free updates by email.