NIH scrutinizes funding gap between white researchers and black researchers

NIH knows that black scientists are less successful than white scientists in winning R01 awards. A recently published paper examined the funding gap and identified three decision points at which disparate outcomes arose: (1) the decision to bring applications to discussion during peer review study sections, (2) impact score assignments for applications discussed and (3) topic choice. Regarding topic choice, black applicants were more likely to be associated with studies examining issues including health disparities, disease prevention and socioeconomic factors. Details are available here.