AcademyHealth Supports the NIH Peer Review System

In 2003, an organization questioned the appropriateness of the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) decision to fund selected research relating to health and sexuality, including some public health studies of HIV/AIDS and sexual risk-taking behaviors. The group asked for an investigation of the NIH's approval of research conducted by more than 150 scientists under more than 250 grants. As the professional home for health services researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners, AcademyHealth is deeply concerned about any efforts that undermine the peer review system.

AcademyHealth believes that a major reason that health research is so successful in the United States is that Congress requires that federal funding decisions about such investigations be made solely on the basis of scientific merit. AcademyHealth strongly supports and reaffirms the existing NIH peer-review process and believes it should continue to be used as the arbiter of the research enterprise.

While AcademyHealth supports the peer review process and believes it should remain free of political and ideological pressures in determining which grants to fund, we also respect the role Congress has in overseeing the NIH as a whole and in determining the programmatic areas which the federal government should fund.

Millions of Americans are living longer and healthier lives as a result of research funded by the NIH and other federal agencies. Peer review under the NIH is a rigorous two-step process that ensures the technical merit of U.S. research as well as its relevance to national priorities. Politicizing this process threatens the capacity of the United States to advance scientific knowledge and improve public health. Congress and the Administration must resist efforts to undermine the peer review process.