Despite the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) stated focus on translating the fruits of medical research into community practice, and family medicine's well-developed clinical infrastructure that uniquely enables it to help bridge the chasm between medical knowledge and actual clinical care, family medicine receives a miniscule proportion of NIH grant funding and has correspondingly minimal representation on NIH advisory committees. Analyzing NIH grants from 2002 through 2006, researchers found that while grants to departments of family medicine increased from 89 ($25.6 million) in 2002, to 154 ($44.6 million) in 2006, these values represented only 0.2 percent (0.15 percent for dollars) and 0.33 percent (0.22 percent for dollars), respectively, of total NIH awards.

Moreover, analyzing the current advisory committee memberships, they found family medicine representatives were on only 6.4 percent of all NIH advisory committees (0.38 percent of all members). The authors conclude that the lack of family medicine involvement in the planning and execution of federally funded research has adverse implications for the direction of biomedical research in the United States, its relevance to actual patient care, and its ultimate impact on public health. It also has implications for the status and vitality of the family medicine specialty.

They call on the specialty to foster a better relationship with the NIH through greater research training, collaborations and self-advocacy. Greater interaction, they conclude, offers the potential for substantial mutual benefit.

Off the Roadmap? Family Medicine's Grant Funding and Committee Representation at NIH
By Sean C. Lucan, M.D., M.P.H., et al
Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Annals of Family Medicine - November/December 2008

The Annals of Family Medicine is a new peer-reviewed research journal to meet the needs of scientists, practitioners, policymakers, and the patients and communities they serve. The Annals of Family Medicine is dedicated to advancing knowledge essential to understanding and improving health and primary care. The Annals supports a learning community of those who generate and use information about health and generalist health care.

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Angela Sharma
American Academy of Family Physicians