Funding - Government Funding Priorities

Government spending for research and development (R&D) has been and continues to be on the rise. Health R&D outlay data were first available in 1953. Since then, government funding of health R&D decreased only twice: in 1977¹ and 1996. The table below tracks the growth rate of government funding of health R&D as compared to defense and non-defense R&D funding. As the table shows, during the periods between downturns, health R&D outlays grew at a faster rate than both defense R&D and total nondefense R&D funding.²

Comparative Growth Rates (%) For R&D Funding

	1953-1976	1977-1995	1996-2003 est.
Defense R&D	532	247	52
Nondefense R&D	3,347	191	62
Health R&D	4,993	583	150

But how does health R&D funding fit in with other nondefense R&D funding? Has it been getting more attention in recent years, as the dollar figures in the graph above suggest? Or does the high growth rate from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s suggest that a higher priority was given to health R&D in this time period? The graphic below shows health R&D outlays as a percentage of total nondefense R&D outlays. Although the growth in health R&D funding was greatest from 1953 to 1976, health R&D as a percentage of total nondefense R&D was greatest in the latter half of the 1990s. Health R&D began taking up a larger and larger percentage of nondefense R&D in the mid-1960s. In 2001 health R&D funding was greater than 51% of the total funding for nondefense R&D. This upward trend is expected to continue at least until 2003.

U.S. Government Health R&D Outlays as a Percentage of Total Nondefense Outlays, 1953-2003

But where specifically is the funding going? In the first chapter of this volume, we discussed the top 10 causes of death. Are these diseases getting the most attention?

We will attempt to answer these questions in the next panel.

Source: Executive Office of the President of the United States. Budget of the United States Government: Fiscal Year 2003. Historical Tables. "Table 9.8 -- Composition of Outlays for the Conduct of Research and Development: 1949-2003." Retrieved August 8, 2002 from http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/.