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A
Twenty-Year History of Research Funding in Occupational Therapy
...................................................................................................................
December 1999
marked the end of the first twenty-year program in which the
American Occupational Therapy Foundation and the American
Occupational Therapy Association jointly awarded research
grants to AOTA members. The program was established at the
1978 AOTA annual meeting in Detroit, when the Representative
Assembly asked the AOTF to create a series of research programs
commensurate with the needs of the profession at the time.
The first action taken by the newly created Research Advisory
Council was to initiate a call for proposals. Grants could
not exceed $5,000, and studies were to be completed within
the year. Policies and procedures were developed, and standards
were gradually raised, as were the dollar amounts made available
for individual studies. Currently, grants are made as Innovation
studies ($8,000 maximum), Impact studies ($30,000), and Student
Research Grants ($1,000).
These small grants
are primarily categorized according to specialty areas of
practice. Using these designations, funds have been allocated
as shown below. Abstracts appear annually in the November-December
issue of AJOT, providing a record of studies completed within
the year.
| Activities/Theory/Occupational
Science |
$35,598.02 |
| Administration
|
$5,298.15 |
| Clinical
Reasoning/Education |
$56,806.37 |
| Developmental
Disabilities |
$242,228.65 |
| Gerontology
|
$84,175.77 |
| Mental
Health |
$138,108.75 |
| Physical
Disabilities |
$163,068.58 |
| Sensory
Integration |
$99,288.60 |
| Tests
and Measurements |
$84,262.25 |
A total of $408,324 has been awarded as innovation grants,
while impact studies have been funded for $444,051, and students
have received $56,461.
Occasionally, funds
have been allocated for special projects outside these categories
for amounts exceeding the usual financial limitations. These
exceptions to the rule may be categorized as follows:
Development of specific
standardized assessments or databases or both needed by practitioners:
•
Gary Kielhofner, et. al: Occupational Performance History
Interview
• Roger Smith: OT FACT
• Craig Velozo: Development of a National Data Base to
Study the Effectiveness of Industrial Rehabilitation
• Allen Heinemann: Relation of Rehabilitation Intervention
to Functional Outcomes (an analysis of national FIM data)
• Monica Perlmutter: Standardization of the I.W. J. Functional
Assessment
Support of three
studies concerning issues that appeared to have particular
importance to the profession:
• Keh-Chung
Lin: A Meta-Analysis Study of Sensory Integration in Persons
with Learning Disabilities
•
Catherine Trombly: The Relationship of Outpatient Occupational
Therapy to Achievement of Occupational Performance by Brain-Injured
Adults
•
Florence Clark, et. al: Occupational Therapy for Independent-Living
Adults
Funding for these
special studies totaled $247,471.
AOTA and AOTF provided
$225,000 to establish three centers for Scholarship and Research
during the 1980s--- the University of Illinois at Chicago,
Sargent College at Boston University, and the University of
Southern California. These centers matched the AOTA-AOTF funds,
and agreed to secure funding to continue the operation of
the centers for an indefinite period of time. The purpose
of the program was to stimulate research among faculty and
students, to promote research by providing consultation to
local clinicians, and to recognize the centers as leaders
in scholarly and scientific activity. The result has been
an outstanding record on each center's part with regard to
federally and privately funded research grants, sometimes
in the several million dollars per year range.
Between 1983 and
1998 AOTF and the Special Interest Sections of AOTA sponsored
a series of bi-annual research symposia, each structured around
the research needs of one of the special interest sections.
Teams of clinicians and new academics were recruited to learn
the research process in detail from a team leader who served
as principal investigator and mentor. Thirty such teams have
been formed, providing these exciting learning experiences
for more than 300 occupational therapists. A total of $273,758
has supported this research.
Another program designed to stimulate and support research
has also addressed the profession's need for doctoral prepared
faculty. The Dissertation Research Awards program, formerly
known as the doctoral fellowship program, has awarded a total
of $310,114 to 20 scholars since 1981. In addition, six post-doctoral
fellowships have provided approximately $195,000 to support
important contributions to scholarship development and to
literature in the field.
Finally, in 1999,
AOTA and AOTF provided support for a new Center for Outcomes
Research (CORE). The award was given to the University of
Illinois at Chicago, where a core group of scholars will interact
with 17 other occupational scientist/scholars to examine research
methods appropriate to outcomes research in occupational therapy.
Each of these scholars will prepare a research grant proposal
for an outcomes study over the next 3 years. The University
of Illinois matched the $300,000 investment made by AOTF and
AOTA in establishing this center.
In summary, during
the first 20 years of the research programs sponsored by AOTF
and AOTA, a total of $2,460,179 has been contributed to the
development of the profession's knowledge base. More than
half of this money represents contributions by AOTA members
through their membership fees. Other funds have been raised
by AOTF, contributed by corporate donors, and secured through
grants from public and private foundations.
...................................................
[Gillette,
N]. (2000). A twenty-year history of research funding in occupational
therapy. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy,
54(4), 441-442. (reprinted with permission from The American
Occupational Therapy Association).
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