10.5826/dpc.1303a162
text/xml
2160-9381
3075
en
Shari Lipner 
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Dermatology Practical & Conceptual
Dermatology Receives Fewer Grants Versus Other Specialties but Excels in Citation Impact in a Cross-sectional Analysis of R01 Grants 2000-2022
Text.Serial.Journal
https://dpcj.org/index.php/dpc
Letter to the Editor
2023-07-31
2022-12-12
2023-07-31
2023-08-24
e2023162
Dermatol Pract Concept
Shari Lipner 
2023/07/31
10.5826/dpc.1303a162
e2023162
Department of Dermatology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA
2160-9381
en
e2023162
Brass LF, Akabas MH. The national MD-PhD program outcomes study: Relationships between medical specialty, training duration, research effort, and career paths. JCI Insight. 2019;4(19):e133009. Published 2019 Oct 3. doi:10.1172/jci.insight.133009
Dermatology Receives Fewer Grants Versus Other Specialties but Excels in Citation Impact in a Cross-sectional Analysis of R01 Grants 2000-2022
https://dpcj.org/index.php/dpc/article/download/3075/2205
 Dermatology Receives Fewer Grants Versus Other
    Specialties but Excels in Citation Impact in
a Cross-sectional Analysis of R01 Grants 2000-2022
                                 Jade Conway1, Jose W. Ricardo2, Shari R. Lipner2


1 New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York, USA
2 Department of Dermatology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA



Citation: Conway J, Ricardo JW, Lipner SR. Dermatology receives fewer grants vs. other specialties but excels in citation impact in a cross-
sectional analysis of R01 grants 2000-2022. Dermatol Pract Concept. 2023;13(3):e2023162. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5826/dpc.1303a162
Accepted: January 21, 2023; Published: July 2023
Copyright: ©2023 Conway et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial License (BY-NC-4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
Funding: None.
Competing Interests: Ms. Conway and Dr. Ricardo have no conflicts of interest. Dr. Lipner has served a consultant for Orth-Dermatologics,
Hoth Therapeutics, and Belle Torus Corporation
Authorship: All authors have contributed significantly to this publication.
Corresponding Author: Shari R. Lipner, MD PhD, Department of Dermatology, Weill Cornell Medicine, 1305 York Avenue, 9th floor,
New York, NY 10021 Phone: 646-962-3376 E-mail: shl9032@med.cornell.edu




To the Editor,                                                           grant-associated manuscript RCRs, represented the overall
                                                                         grant impact, and mean RCR represented the average RCR
Grant funding is essential for conducting high-impact bio-               of grant-associated publications.
medical research, and the National Institutes of Health                       There were 396 new R01 dermatology grants (total
(NIH) Research Project Grant R01 remains the benchmark                   grant money: $153,057,895), resulting in 3,975 publica-
non-industry funding mechanism. We aimed to characterize                 tions and 10.04 articles/grant 2000-2022. Number of der-
number and citation impact of R01 grants awarded to der-                 matology grants/year was stable (m of best fit line 0.087,
matology compared to other fields.                                       variance 16.72, Supplemental Table 1). Average number of
    The NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools                    grants/physician was 0.032 for dermatology and 0.052 for
database was retrospectively reviewed for new R01 grants                 all specialties (Table 1). Most primary investigators were
issued to dermatology and other specialties, 2000-2022.                  physician-scientists (220 grants, 55.5%). Mean weighted
Primary investigators with MD or MD-PhD were defined                     RCR for physician-scientist grants (27.49, 95% confi-
as “physician-scientists,” and those with PhD or equiv-                  dence interval [CI], 20.95-34.03) was greater than for
alent as “research-scientists.” NIH iCite database was                   research-scientist grants (15.05, 95% CI, 12.17-17.93)
searched for Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), measuring                    (0 = .0017) (Figure 1). Mean RCR for physician-scientist
field- and time-independent citation rate for each publica-              publications (1.81, 95% CI, 1.57-2.04) was greater (P = 0.02)
tion per grant.1 Reviews and articles without RCR were                   than for research-scientist publications (1.44, 95% CI, 1.24-
excluded. Weighted RCR for each grant, defined as sum of                 1.63) (Supplemental Figure 1).




Letter to the Editor | Dermatol Pract Concept. 2023;13(3):e2023162                                                                        1
    Table 1. Number of new National Institute of Health R01 grants and associated publications by
                                       specialty, 2000-2022
                      Specialty                             # Grants         #Publications             Average # Grants/Physician*
 Internal Medicine                                           12,168              192,553                            0.101
 Psychiatry                                                    3,742              55,754                            0.096
 Pediatrics                                                    2,722              38,114                            0.045
 Radiology                                                     2,150              36,192                            0.077
 Neurology                                                     1,973              33,818                            0.139
 General Surgery                                               1,572              26,169                            0.061
 Ophthalmology                                                 1,065              17,307                            0.055
 Obstetrics and Gynecology                                       693                8,108                           0.016
 Dermatology                                                     396                3,975                           0.032
 Family Medicine                                                 315                3,221                           0.003
 Urology                                                         277                3,525                           0.027
 Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation                            166                2,291                           0.017
 Emergency Medicine                                              144                1,280                           0.003
 All Specialties                                             27,383              422,307                            0.052
*Number of grants/physician was calculated with the number of active physicians per specialty, obtained from the Association of American
Medical College (AAMC) Physician Specialty Data Report, as the denominator.




    Figure 1. Mean Weighted Relative Citation Ratio for R01 Grants Issued to Department of Dermatology Investigators
    from 2000-2022, calculated using GraphPad unpaired 2-tailed t test.
    The lines inside both blue bars represent the confidence intervals for the t test.
    RCR = Relative Citation Rate


    Our study demonstrated that NIH-funded dermatology                     other specialties, suggesting limited allocation of NIH funds
research is highly impactful, considering the high mean RCR                to dermatology or dermatology investigators applying for
value versus a field-normalized RCR standard value of 1.0                  few grants.
for NIH-funded research. While dermatology performed                           Despite      numerous     challenges,    physician-scientists
above average for number of articles/grant (10.4 versus                    produced significantly more impactful research than
7.36) [2], average grants/physician was lower compared to                  research-scientists. In a retrospective study of all NIH grants



2                                                                           Letter to the Editor | Dermatol Pract Concept. 2023;13(3):e2023162
awarded to dermatology departments, 2009-2014, R01                   References
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matology physician-scientists demonstrate higher citation
impact than research-scientists. We encourage dermatology
investigators to apply for NIH funding and persuade fund-
ing agencies to allocate resources supporting dermatology
physician-scientists.




Letter to the Editor | Dermatol Pract Concept. 2023;13(3):e2023162                                                                       3
