Voicing an impact: who does the National Institutes of Health support for voice disorder research?

Abstract

The study of voice disorders involves an interdisciplinary approach, as PIs in numerous specialties receive NIH funding support. As they receive a considerable proportion of this funding and had similar h-indices compared to other specialties involved, otolaryngologists have just as much scholarly impact despite being a smaller specialty. As speech and language pathologists also comprised a significant proportion of individuals in this analysis, enhanced cooperation and encouragement of interdisciplinary scholarly initiatives may be beneficial.

Are industry financial ties associated with greater scholarly impact among academic otolaryngologists?

“…In this regard, it can be considered to be more reflective of scholarly impact than number of publications (which indicate little about the relevance of one's publications) or one's total citation count (which can be skewed by a single or handful of articles). Hence, the h‐index has been demonstrated to have a strong association with scholarly impact, academic advancement, extramural funding, and fellowship training in otolaryngology, as well as myriad other specialties …”

NIH Funding within Otolaryngology: 2005‐2014

“…While otolaryngologists participate in the translation of basic research into clinical practice, they often receive less total funding as well as less proportional funding of disease processes studied compared with clinicians in other larger specialties and/or PhD faculty. 2-4…”

“…While otolaryngologists participate in the translation of basic research into clinical practice, they often receive less total funding as well as less proportional funding of disease processes studied compared with clinicians in other larger specialties and/or PhD faculty. [2][3][4] The NIH makes the distribution of funding publicly available via online databases, and several studies have examined the award allocations within several specific otolaryngology pathologies. For example, in projects studying obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), 2.6% of principal investigators (PIs) who received grants between 2000 and 2014 were otolaryngology faculty.…”

Recent trends in oropharyngeal cancer funding and public interest

“…). Similar findings have previously been noted upon evaluation of funding patterns for other interdisciplinary entities relevant to otolaryngologists . This suggests that enhanced interdisciplinary cooperation and increased recruitment of basic scientists are a potential means to increase scholarly impact within otolaryngology departments.…”

“…Because Google Trends has demonstrated its unique value in numerous analyses examining search volumes trends, we felt it was the most appropriate and accessible tool for use in this analysis . Additional limitations are those inherent to the NIH RePORTER database, which has been integral to numerous prior analyses looking at funding patterns, including the subjective nature of our inclusion criteria. The present search strategy is transparent, and numerous studies have focused on oncogenic pathways common to multiple cancers (including OPC) that were included.…”