Inequalities persist for female, Black faculty among well-funded NIH investigators
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The proportion of female and Black faculty among a cohort of well-funded NIH investigators appeared significantly lower compared with white men, according to study results published in JAMA Network Open.
Of note, Black women appeared threefold less likely than white men to be included among the pool of well-funded NIH investigators.
“Diversity in biomedical research is critical for scientific innovation,” Mytien Nguyen, MS, researcher at Yale School of Medicine, told Healio. “Despite the benefit of a diverse biomedical science workforce, there is significant gender, racial, and ethnic disparity in NIH funding. A faculty’s research portfolio may influence their promotion, recruitment, and resource allocation, and well-established faculty often have a significant impact on institutional and national policies.”
Intersectionality
The cross-sectional study included 33,896 NIH-funded principal investigators from the NIH Information for Management, Planning, Analysis and Coordination database between 1991 and 2020.
Most investigators (65.2%) identified as white, followed by Asian (22.01%), Hispanic (4.8%) and Black (1.8%). More than half (61.7%) identified as men and 35.3% as early-stage investigators.
Researchers sought to examine gender, race and ethnic disparities among those who received three or more research grants, dubbed super principal investigators.
Results showed the proportion of super principal investigators increased threefold during the study period from 3.7% to 11.3%. However, women appeared 34% less likely and Black individuals 40% less likely to be included among the pool of super principal investigators compared with their male and white counterparts. Of note, the disparities persisted even after adjusting for career stage and educational degree.
Moreover, results showed Black female principal investigators appeared least likely to be represented among super principal investigators and 71% less likely to become super principal investigators compared with their white male counterparts (adjusted OR = 0.29; 95% CI, 0.21-0.41).
“These findings did not surprise us as much as it confirmed observations in our lived experiences,” Nguyen said. “In academia, there is a gradual decrease in representation up the academic ladder. What was surprising was that when we looked at the time trend, the representation of Black women among the elite group of well-funded faculty since 2016 had been stagnant, whereas the percentage of super principal investigators among all other groups increased since 2016. This highlights that intersectionality is critical, and that diversity initiatives should also consider the unique challenges that Black women faculty face in academia and the NIH grants application process.”
Critical need for change
To enhance diversity and equity in the biomedical research workforce, a collective effort and investment in female and racial/ethnic underrepresented scholars is critical, Nguyen told Healio.
“This ranges from implementing equitable mentorship and sponsorship, mitigating bias in the NIH grant review process, increasing the importance of diversity metrics in grants evaluation, and allocating more resources toward current NIH efforts, such as UNITE, and expanding innovative programs like the BRAIN Initiative to other areas of research,” she said. “We are now interested in whether this trend is generalizable to other federal and nonfederal funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation.”
In addition, other dimensions of disadvantage that were not explored in the current study should be examined, Nguyen continued.
“This includes socioeconomic background and how it may impact the gender and racial/ethnic disparities observed,” she said. “More importantly, it is critical that we also highlight the current vast underrepresentation of Indigenous NIH-funded researchers, which we were not able to explore in this study due to small sample size.”
For more information:
Mytien Nguyen, MS, can be reached at mytien.nguyen@yale.edu.
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