Funding research to achieve the Spine “10 × 25” goal

Abstract

Back and neck pain are among the top causes of burden-of-illness, both in the US and globally. The North American Spine Foundation aims to reduce US spine-related disability 10% by 2025. New kinds of research will be needed in the spine field to achieve this goal. The vast majority of investigator-initiated medical research in the US is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Unfortunately, current NIH funding is heavily skewed away from spine research. Although back and neck pain account for 6.9% of all burden-of-illness in America, it appears certain that NIH devotes less than 1% of its budget to research on back and neck pain. While the total average NIH funding per unit of burden-of-illness for all diseases is 343 dollars per disability-adjusted life year, back and neck pain appear to receive, at most, only 48 dollars per disability-adjusted life year. In order to reduce the burden-of-illness of spine disorders enough to achieve the Spine 10 × 25 goal, the spine community and general public need to lobby Congress to increase research funding for back and neck pain.