ArticleBMJ open2022
Does NIH funding differ between medical specialties? A longitudinal analysis of NIH grant data by specialty and type of grant, 2011-2020.
Article in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
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- National Institutes of Health-Funded Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Research, 2019-2023: Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
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- Trends in Industry-Sponsored Research Funding to Orthopaedic Surgeons in the U.S. from 2017-2024.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- A Snapshot of National Institutes of Health Funding for Sepsis Research: 2019-2023.Annals of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Trends in paediatric anaesthesia research publications and the impact of author sex, country of origin, topic, and external funding.BJA open · 2025Article
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- Psychosocial Support for Parents, Infants, Children, and Adolescents with Variations of Sex Characteristics: Results from a Pan-European Survey.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Invited editorial: A guide to caring for patients who identify as transgender and gender diverse in the emergency department: The evolution of evidence-based medicine.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2024Article
- Underfunding for Research Training and Career Development: The Impact on Family Medicine Research.Family medicine · 2024Article
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- Challenges in Transition of Care for People with Variations in Sex Characteristics in the European Context.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
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Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesDifferences in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding between specialties may affect research and patient outcomes in specialties that are less well funded.The aim of this study is to evaluate how NIH funding has been awarded by medical specialty. This study assesses differences and trends in the amount of funding, by medical specialty, for the years 2011-2020, via a retrospective analysis of data from the NIH RePORTER (Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results). STUDY
designLongitudinal cross-sectional study
settingNIH RePORTER data from 2011 to 2020 for awarded NIH grants (F32, T32, K01, K08, K23, R01, R03, R21, U01, P30) in the following medical specialties: anaesthesiology, dermatology, emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, pathology, paediatrics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, plastic surgery, psychiatry, radiation-diagnostic/oncology, surgery, and urology.
participantsNIH grant awardees for the years 2011-2020
interventionNone PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The following measures were studied: (1) number of grants by specialty, (2) number of grants per active physician in each specialty, (3) total dollar amount of grants by specialty, (4) total dollar amount of grants per active physician in each specialty and (5) mean dollar amount awarded by specialty for each grant type. We investigated whether any of these measures varied between medical specialties.
resultsIn general, internal medicine/medicine, psychiatry, paediatrics, pathology and neurology received the most grants per year, had the highest number of grants per active physician, had the highest total amount of funding and had the highest amount of funding per active physician, whereas fields like emergency medicine, plastic surgery, orthopaedics, and obstetrics and gynaecology had the lowest. The mean dollar amount awarded by grant type differed significantly between specialties (p value less than the Bonferroni-corrected alpha=0.00029).
conclusionsNIH funding varies significantly between medical specialties. This may affect research progress and the careers of scientists and may affect patient outcomes in less well funded specialties.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.