Primary care for cancer survivors: a review of national institutes of health-funded grants 2017–2022

To describe the characteristics of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants on primary care cancer research in cancer survivorship funded over the past 5 years.

Research project grants (RPG) funded during Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 to 2022 focused on cancer survivorship were identified using a text mining algorithm of words from the NIH Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) thesaurus with survivorship-relevant terms. Grants were then reviewed and double-coded to identify those that were carried out in a primary care setting, targeted primary care providers, or had primary care providers in the study team.

A total of 24 grants were identified; 23 were funded by the National Cancer Institute and one was funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The majority were funded under the R01 mechanism (70.8%) and led by established investigators. Most were interventional design (91.7%), including both survivors and providers (79.2%), and focused care coordination or healthcare utilization (91.7%).

Grants focused on primary care cancer survivorship are uncommon in the NIH portfolio.

For the over 18 million cancer survivors in the USA, being cared for in a primary care setting is common. Yet, NIH-funded research on primary care cancer survivorship is sparse.