Between January and May 2025, the National Institutes of Health terminated over 2,000 research grants found to be not aligned with new agency priorities. Research has shown that many of these grants were associated with the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities.
A new study led by scholars at the University of California, San Diego, has found that a disproportionate number of these terminated grant projects were not only focused on health inequities, but were led by scientists who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC); and/or sexual and gender minorities.
“These grant terminations didn’t just disrupt specific research projects; they also disrupted the careers of many scientists who study the health of marginalized communities,” said senior author Rebecca Fielding-Miller, associate professor at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. “When funding for these topics disappears, the researchers with the deepest expertise in them are often the ones most directly affected.”
The research team surveyed 941 investigators whose grants were terminated in early 2025. Nearly half of these scientists identified as BIPOC. Women in this group were particularly affected, with BIPOC women researchers having nearly three times higher odds of receiving an equity-related termination than White men. Similar findings were found among scientists identifying as transgender or nonbinary.
“When funding disruptions disproportionately affect researchers who focus on health disparities, the consequences go far beyond individual careers,” said Dr. Fielding-Miller. “They also shape which scientific questions get asked, and whose health ultimately receives attention.”
The study also included authors from Emory University in Atlanta, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Maryland.
