Evaluating Funding for Authors Achieving High Citations vs. Online Popularity

Area of Science:

• Spine Surgery Research
• Bibliometrics
• Research Funding Analysis

Background:

• The Altmetric score measures online attention for scientific studies.
• Previous research linked government/industry funding to study citations.
• The relationship between funding and online attention (Altmetric scores) was unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if authors of studies with high Altmetric scores receive more industry funding.
• To determine if authors of highly cited studies receive more National Institute of Health (NIH) funding.
• To test the hypothesis that distinct funding sources correlate with different measures of research impact.

Main Methods:

• Selected top spine surgery studies (2010-2021) based on Altmetric scores and citation counts.
• Accessed Open Payments Database for industry financial relationships.
• Utilized NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool for NIH funding data.
• Compared payments using statistical analyses (Student t-test, ANOVA, chi-square).

Main Results:

• No significant difference in total industry payments between top Altmetric and top citation study authors.
• Authors in both top Altmetric and citation groups received more industry payments for consulting, travel, and speaking.
• Authors receiving NIH support were more likely to have studies in both top Altmetric and citation groups.
• NIH-funded authors received significantly less industry payments than non-NIH-funded authors.

Conclusions:

• The hypothesis was rejected; no notable differences in industry payments or NIH funding were found between authors of top Altmetric and citation studies.
• Authors funded by industry and the NIH generally represent distinct groups.
• A small cohort of authors receives funding from both industry and the NIH, with their studies achieving both critical acclaim (citations) and online popularity (Altmetric scores).