Health Research Investment by America

The U.S. invested 139 billion dollars last year in health research from all public and private sources, according to a report released Thursday by nonprofit organization Research!America.

That amount represents only 5.6 percent of the 2.47 trillion dollars overall U.S. health spending in 2009 -- or 5.6 cents of every health dollar -- which varies no more than 0.2 percent from 2005 levels.

According to the report, the 2009 investment grew by only 0.1 percent over 2008. This small increase can be attributed largely to the federal stimulus funding for research provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Federal research investment was nearly 46.8 billion dollars in 2009, up from 38.6 billion dollars in 2008.

The effects of the economic recession can be seen throughout the other sectors that fund health research and development -- industry, universities, state and local governments, philanthropic foundations, voluntary health associations, and independent research institutes -- where such investment remained essentially flat or declined in 2009. Industry was the largest source of health research funding in 2009 at 74.3 billion dollars, down slightly from the prior year's 74.8 billion dollars. All other sources combined invested 17.8 billion dollars, compared with 17.1 billion dollars in 2008.