Change in Health & Human Services R&D, by State 2002-2006

Increasing life science and health-related research remains a major component of many state, local and university TBED strategies. Change in federal R&D obligations from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality among other agencies, could be a good indicator of progress — or an indicator of the need to expand or amend those strategies. This week's Useful Stats column presents five-year data on changes in HHS R&D obligations by state.

While the NIH budget was doubling in the early part of the last decade, most states saw life science research spending rise. Flatter federal R&D budgets, though, mean more competition for funding. The FY11 Federal Budget released recently by the Obama Administration requests a slight uptick for HHS research, but only priority areas would receive increases that keep pace with inflation. That, coupled with the large spike in R&D grants distributed by NIH as a result of ARRA, could signal competition to maintain local research momentum would grow even more in the coming year.

Aggregate HHS R&D spending still increased in the study period 2002-2006, but the state by state analysis in SSTI's table paints a picture that includes more disparity in performance and dependence on HHS funding from year to year as well as across the five years.

For the U.S. as a whole in 2006, HHS R&D obligations were $28.4 billion, a small ($18 million) decrease from the previous fiscal year but 19 percent higher than 2002. As a percentage of the nation's entire R&D portfolio, HHS's share fell to 26.4 percent in 2006, from a peak of 28.7 percent of all federal R&D in 2003. This marks the third year in a row that HHS's share of total federal R&D obligations has declined.

As the home to HHS divisions such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Maryland led the country with $7.20 billion in HHS R&D funding in 2006, just over one-quarter of all HHS R&D obligations. The state also enjoyed the greatest five-year percentage increase in HHS obligations at a whopping 276.1 percent.

The second greatest five-year increase in HHS obligations was experienced by West Virginia at 37.4 percent. Total HHS R&D obligations for West Virginia in 2006, however, were only 0.6 percent of Maryland's total that year.

More than 30 states experienced declines in the percent change between 2002 and 2006, but individual year snapshots can be misleading. Because of the significant variability in the flow of HHS obligations by state each year, trend lines across the years may be more telling. SSTI's table presents the total R&D obligations for each year and the percent change from the previous year as well as the five-year figure. The table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/021710t.htm

The original data for each state, including the R&D breakouts for every agency in addition to HHS, can be found at the NSF's Federal Funds for Research and Development series. They can be accessed at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/fedfunds/.