Evaluating the Productivity of VA, NIH, and AHRQ Health Services Research Career Development Awardees.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the academic advancement and productivity of Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) Career Development Award (CDA) program recipients, National Institutes of Health (NIH) K awardees in health services research (HSR), and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) K awardees. METHOD: In all, 219 HSR&D CDA recipients from fiscal year (FY) 1991 through FY2010; 154 NIH K01, K08, and K23 awardees FY1991-FY2010; and 69 AHRQ K01 and K08 awardees FY2000-FY2010 were included. Most data were obtained from curricula vitae. Academic advancement, publications, grants, recognition, and mentoring were compared after adjusting for years since award, and personal characteristics, training, and productivity prior to the award. RESULTS: No significant differences emerged in covariate-adjusted tenure-track academic rank, number of grants as primary investigator (PI), major journal articles as first/sole author, Hirsch h-index scores, likelihood of a journal editorship position or membership in a major granting review panel, or mentoring postgraduate researchers between the HSR&D CDA and NIH K awardees from FY1991-FY2010, or among the three groups of awardees from FY2000 or later. Among those who reported grant funding levels, HSR&D CDAs from FY1991-2010 had been PI on more grants of $100,000 than NIH K awardees. HSR&D CDAs had a higher mean number of major journal articles than NIH K awardees from FY1991-2010. CONCLUSIONS: Findings show that all three HSR career development programs are successfully selecting and mentoring awardees, ensuring additional HSR capacity to improve the quality and delivery of high-value care.

Ten-Year Publication Trajectories of Health Services Research Career Development Award Recipients: Collaboration, Awardee Characteristics, and Productivity Correlates.

This study's purpose was to identify distinct publishing trajectories among 442 participants in three prominent mentored health services research career development programs (Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health, and Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality) in the 10 years after award receipt and to examine awardee characteristics associated with different trajectories. Curricula vitae (CVs) of researchers receiving awards between 1991 and 2010 were coded for publications, grants, and awardee characteristics. We found that awardees published at constant or increasing rates despite flat or decreasing rates of first-author publications. Senior-author publications rose concurrently with rates of overall publications. Higher overall publication trajectories were associated with receiving more grants, more citations as measured by the h-index, and more authors per article. Lower trajectory groups were older and had a greater proportion of female awardees. Career development awards supported researchers who generally published successfully, but trajectories varied across individual researchers. Researchers' collaborative efforts produced an increasing number of articles, whereas first author articles were written at a more consistent rate. Career development awards in health services research supported the careers of researchers who published at a high rate; future research should further examine reasons for variation in publishing among early career researchers.