Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public

Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11617.html
BOLSTERING SOMNOLOGY RESEARCH 269
Human Development. The NCMRR supports research on enhancing the
functioning of people with disabilities in daily life. Compared to the 1 RFA
established by the NCSDR in fiscal year 2004, the NCMRR established 6
RFAs and 4 PAs. Further, between 2001 and 2004 the NCMRR established
20 RFAs, while the NCSDR established only 4 RFAs. It is unclear why
there is such a dramatic difference in the activity of these two centers.
Protocol for Research Project Grant Analysis
This committee performed a detailed analysis of the 1995 and 2004
portfolios of NIH somnology and sleep disorders research project grants
(R01) to determine the current investment in the field and to examine how
the grant portfolio has changed over the last 10 years. To do so, abstracts of
all sleep-related R01s in the Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific
Projects (CRISP) database were analyzed. This database collects information
on the number of federally funded biomedical research projects.
Sleep-related R01s were collected by searching the CRISP database for all
abstracts that were classified under the following thesaurus terms: insomnia,
periodic limb movement disorder, restless legs syndrome, circadian
rhythm, SIDS, sleep disorder, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, sleep, hibernation,
and dream. To limit the number of grants that were not relevant to somnology
or sleep disorders, the committee only included grants in which the key
words appeared in both the thesaurus terms and abstract and not the
abstract alone. It should be noted that the following conclusions are based
on the number of grants awarded in each area. The committee did not have
access to the applications that were submitted and not funded; therefore, it
is not possible to conclusively determine if changes in investment are the
result of NIH policy, the number and/or quality of submissions in each
area, composition of grant review committees, or a combination of these
factors.
General Findings
The CRISP search identified 156 sleep-related grants for 1995 and 397
for 2004. Upon review of their abstracts a number of these were determined
to be unrelated to sleep. This resulted in 116 total sleep-related grants in
1995 and 331 sleep-related grants in 2004, a 2.85 fold increase (Table 8-3).
The number of the grants deemed not relevant to sleep-related research—
34 out of 156 in 1995, and 59 out of 397 in 2004—represents a relatively
constant percentage (i.e., 21 percent and 15 percent, respectively; supplemental
grants and grants with no abstract were also not classified). Thus,
use of this methodology to track temporal trends in number of grants seems
appropriate. Of the relevant sleep R01 grants there were 253 principal
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.