The Impact of National Institutes of Health Funding on Scholarly Productivity in Academic Plastic Surgery

Document Type

Article

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The h-index is an objective measure of an investigator's scholarly impact. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the association between scholarly impact, as measured by the h-index, and the procurement of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding among academic plastic surgeons. METHODS: This was a case-control study of NIH-funded plastic surgery faculty identified on the RePORTER database. Non-NIH-funded faculty from the top 10 NIH-funded programs served as a control group. The mean h-index was calculated from Scopus (Elsevier, London, United Kingdom) and compared by funding status, academic rank, and terminal degree(s). The relationship between h-index and career NIH funding was elucidated via Spearman's correlation coefficient. RESULTS: NIH-funded faculty had higher h-indices than nonNIH-funded faculty (23.9 versus 9.9, p < 0.001), an effect that persisted when controlling for academic rank. Higher rank correlated with higher h-indices and predicted greater NIH funding (p < 0.05). The h-index did not vary by terminal degree (p > 0.05), but investigators with a master's degree exhibited a trend toward greater NIH funding. Higher h-indices correlated with greater NIH funding (r = 0.481, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A strong relationship exists between scholarly impact and the procurement of NIH funding. Faculty with greater funding had greater scholarly impact, as measured by the h-index, which suggests that this tool may have utility during the NIH grant application process.

Medical Subject Headings

Case-Control Studies; Efficiency; National Institutes of Health (U.S.); Publishing (statistics & numerical data); Research Support as Topic (statistics & numerical data); Retrospective Studies; Surgery, Plastic; United States

Publication Date

2-1-2016

Publication Title

Plastic and reconstructive surgery

E-ISSN

1529-4242

Volume

137

Issue

2

First Page

690

Last Page

695

PubMed ID

26818308

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1097/01.prs.0000475798.69478.ea

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