APS Press Room
| For immediate release May 12, 2005 |
Contact: Chuck Weber (847) 705-1802 |
STUDY ASSESSES NIH SUPPORT FOR PAIN RESEARCH
Only 1 Percent of 2003 Grants Were Dedicated to Pain
GLENVIEW, IL, May 12, 2005 – The first-ever classification of National Institutes of Health (NIH) spending on pain research shows that in 2003 the agency funded 581primary pain grants totaling $170 million, but they accounted for just one percent of all NIH research funding that year. According to widely accepted estimates by the American Pain Society, 50 million Americans suffer from some type of persistent pain and some 25 million physician visits a year are for lower back pain alone.
According to the data, compiled and reported in the May issue of The Journal of Pain by co-authors David H. Bradshaw, PhD, Yoshio Nakamura, PhD and C. Richard Chapman, PhD, of the Pain Research Center at the University of Utah Medical Center, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded the most grants for primary pain research in 2003, totaling $47.5 million followed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at $23 million. Further, just three grants were given in the area of cardiac pain, totaling $435,000, and nine grants for $1.7 million for gynecological pain, despite the wide prevalence of those conditions.
“We have sought to provide objective and verifiable information about NIH funding patterns for pain research,” said Chapman. “The value of this study and future research using the NIH pain grant database is to provide a mechanism to identify under-funded areas of pain research, thereby helping policy makers and others responsible for shaping the future of pain research,” said Chapman. “The database also affords researchers an opportunity to inspect NIH research funding patterns.”
The authors classified NIH pain grants as primary if they involved research having a dominant focus on advancing knowledge about pain, reduction of pain symptoms or developments for treating pain. Grants classified as secondary were those for which pain was studied as a symptom of a specific disease, and the research addressed structural changes in diseased tissues but contributed little to the understanding of pain. Among the 581 primary pain research grants, 317 were funded for basic science and 264 for clinical research.
In a separately published commentary, Ronald Dubner, DDS, PhD., professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Maryland Dental School, said the database will allow examination of NIH research funding by institutes and across institutes. “It will help determine whether there are clinical conditions associated with pain that are being overlooked by basic and clinical research scientists and funding agencies,” wrote Dubner.
Chapman noted that his group will continue its review and plans assess 2004 NIH pain research funding in a future publication.
The Journal of Pain is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Pain Society (APS). Based in Glenview, Ill. and founded in 1978, APS is a multidisciplinary professional organization with more than 3,500 members in the United States, consisting of scientists, physicians, pharmacists, psychologists, nurses, policy experts and others who study and treat pain. APS seeks to advance pain-related research, education, treatment and team-oriented professional practice.