U.S. Investment in Health Research

Research!America has been tracking and analyzing the various streams of funding that make up the total U.S. investment in health research for a decade, and trends tell us we are headed in the wrong direction.

In 2011 , biomedical and health R&D spending (all sources) declined by more than $4 billion or 3% — the first drop in overall spending since Research!America began keeping track in 2002. While most of that decrease reflects the end of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding, which allocated $10.4 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over two fiscal years (2009-2010), federal funding declined beyond the drop attributable to ARRA. This decline in federal funding, which follows several years of lost purchasing power, is compromising our nation’s ability to capitalize on unprecedented scientific opportunity. It comes at a time when other nations are ramping up their own investments in research to fuel economic growth and global competitiveness.

In 2011, federal policy makers passed the Budget Control Act (BCA), which established a decade’s worth of stringent caps on annual discretionary funding. These caps could result in flat funding or cuts to every category of federally funded biomedical and health research. The BCA also set the stage for dramatic, across-the-board budget cuts, or sequestration. Unless policy makers act to prevent them, these cuts will take effect on January 2, 2013, reducing federal biomedical and health research funding by 8%-10%.

2011 Investment in U.S. Health Research-includes trend charts
2010 Investment in U.S. Health Research-includes trend charts
2009 Investment in U.S. Health Research-includes trend charts
2008 Investment in U.S. Health Research-includes trend charts
2007 Investment in U.S. Health Research-includes trend charts
2006 Investment in U.S. Health Research-includes trend charts
2005 Investment in U.S. Health Research
2004 Investment in U.S. Health Research 
2002 Investment in U.S. Health Research 

Please send us feedback on the 2011 U.S. Investment in U.S. Health Research.