Topic choice contributes to the lower rate of NIH awards to African-American/black scientists

Despite efforts to promote diversity in the biomedical workforce, there remains a lower rate of funding of National Institutes of Health R01 applications submitted by African-American/black (AA/B) scientists relative to white scientists. To identify underlying causes of this funding gap, we analyzed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science advances 2019-10, Vol.5 (10), p.eaaw7238-eaaw7238
Main Authors: Hoppe, Travis A, Litovitz, Aviva, Willis, Kristine A, Meseroll, Rebecca A, Perkins, Matthew J, Hutchins, B Ian, Davis, Alison F, Lauer, Michael S, Valantine, Hannah A, Anderson, James M, Santangelo, George M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Awards and Prizes
Biomedical Research - statistics & numerical data
Cluster Analysis
Databases, Factual
Humans
National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
Regression Analysis
SciAdv r-articles
Scientific Community
United States
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Summary:Despite efforts to promote diversity in the biomedical workforce, there remains a lower rate of funding of National Institutes of Health R01 applications submitted by African-American/black (AA/B) scientists relative to white scientists. To identify underlying causes of this funding gap, we analyzed six stages of the application process from 2011 to 2015 and found that disparate outcomes arise at three of the six: decision to discuss, impact score assignment, and a previously unstudied stage, topic choice. Notably, AA/B applicants tend to propose research on topics with lower award rates. These topics include research at the community and population level, as opposed to more fundamental and mechanistic investigations; the latter tend to have higher award rates. Topic choice alone accounts for over 20% of the funding gap after controlling for multiple variables, including the applicant's prior achievements. Our findings can be used to inform interventions designed to close the funding gap.
ISSN:2375-2548
2375-2548
DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aaw7238