Universities and academic medical centers would not be alone in bearing the impact of proposed cuts to federal grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health.
Counties across the country could lose billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs for their economies, according to recent research.
In February, the Trump administration said the institutes would cap the indirect cost payment rate for new and existing grants at 15%, threatening billions of dollars used to cover overhead costs such as the buildings, equipment and staff associated with research. The proposed cuts are blocked until lawsuits by attorneys general, academic medical centers and universities are resolved.
Researchers from state universities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Utah and Oregon and George Institute of Technology sought to quantify the economic impact on a county level. The researchers are not affiliated with any group and said they received no outside funding.
"This is entirely sort of a grassroots effort," said one of the researchers, Dr. Alyssa Sinclair of the University of Pennsylvania.
To assess the economic impact, the researchers determined the difference between the proposed cap of 15% of a grant's value and the actual total indirect costs. Then they applied an estimate of $2.56 of economic impact generated for each dollar of NIH grant funding, an estimate based on national data.
Finally, they looked at commuting patterns found in census data to gauge how dollars generated in one county may be spent in another.
"It's an approximation of the losses and how they would spread across communities throughout America," Sinclair said.
The resulting searchable map demonstrates the reach of the potential cuts into communities near those institutions directly affected.
