GoKawiilResearch about how pollution regulations affect people’s health is relevant to policymakers, but the US National Institutes of Health is shifting away from funding such work.Credit: Brandon Bell/Getty
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun turning away research grant applications for which the “primary function” is informing policymakers and legislators, according to internal documents seen by Nature. This means that the agency will likely fund fewer projects assessing how public policies affect human health.
Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants
It’s a major departure for the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. The NIH has a strong reputation for funding projects relevant to policymakers, including those evaluating the health impacts of firearm regulations, abortion limits and environmental protections.
“Policymakers are not considered a stakeholder group within the scope of NIH’s mission,” the internal documents say. “NIH-funded research must empower decision-making by NIH mission-relevant stakeholder groups”, which the documents list as including patients, health-care workers, hospitals and scientists. The change has not yet been formally announced, and there is lack of clarity inside the agency over how it will be implemented, say NIH officials who requested anonymity because of the risk of retaliation.
Removing policy-focused projects from the agency’s portfolio ignores the reality that policies and social factors fundamentally shape human health, some scientists say. Even the most advanced medical breakthroughs cannot help people if poorly designed distribution policies or social barriers prevent them from reaching the individuals who need them, they say.
“Public policy that is blind to current evidence risks safety and effectiveness,” says Meredith Matone, a health-services specialist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The NIH did not respond to Nature’s queries about the change or the agency’s rationale for the move.
‘Policy’ removal
Some NIH staff members learnt about the change in May, when political appointees inside the NIH and those at its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), began flagging and freezing policy-focused grant applications that had been previously approved by peer reviewers and agency employees. (In an unprecedented move, the administration of US President Donald Trump has added political appointees to the grant-approval process, Nature reported in June.)
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