POLICY BRIEF

A Small Percentage of Family Physicians Report
Time Devoted to Research

Jennifer R. Voorhees, MD, Imam M. Xierali, PhD, Andrew W. Bazemore, MD, MPH,
Robert L. Phillips, Jr., MD, MSPH, Carlos R. Jaén, MD, PhD, and James C. Puffer, MD

Despite calls by family medicine organizations to build research capacity within the discipline, few fam-
ily physicians report research activity. Policy that supports efforts in family medicine research and in-
creases awareness of opportunities for primary care research in the practice setting is essential for fam-
ily medicine to expand its scholarly foundations. ( J Am Board Fam Med 2013;26:7– 8.)

For decades, family medicine professional organi-
zations have called for increasing the discipline’s
capacity for research and scholarly work.1,2 There
is widespread recognition of the need for relevant
research in the primary care setting to improve
patient and population outcomes, and family
physicians are uniquely poised to conduct such
research because they provide the largest volume
of health care of any single specialty (nearly 250

million patient visits annually).3 Despite this
acute awareness and need, research remains a
particular challenge to the profession, and family
physicians are minimally involved with the Na-
tional Institutes Health compared with other
specialties.4,5

Of American Board of Family Medicine Main-
tenance of Certification Examination candidates
from 2007 to 2009 (n � 28,505), 4.9% reported
spending any time on research, with 3.9% spending
�10% of their time, 0.7% spending �10% but
�50%, and 0.3% spending �50% of their time on
research (Figure 1). Urban family physicians were
more likely to do research compared with rural
physicians (5.4% vs 2.8%, respectively). Men were
more likely to report any research activity (5.3% vs
4.3%), but women who performed research were

This article was externally peer reviewed.
From Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA (JRV);

Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Washington,
DC (IMX); the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in
Family Medicine and Primary Care, Washington, DC (AWB,
RLP); and the American Board of Family Medicine, Lex-
ington, KY (CRJ, JCP).

Funding: Support was provided by the American Board of
Family Medicine, which contracts annually for health poli-
cy/health services research conducted by the Robert Gra-
ham Center for studies related to maintenance of certifica-
tion and quality.

Conflict of interest: none declared.
Corresponding author: Andrew W. Bazemore, MD,

MPH, The Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in
Family Medicine and Primary Care, 1350 Connecticut
Avenue, NW Suite 201, Washington, DC 20036 (E-mail:
ABazemore@aafp.org).

The paper was submitted for publication while Dr. Xierali
was at the American Academy of Family Physicians. He is
currently Manager for Public Health and Diversity Data Ini-
tiatives at the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Figure 1. Percentage of family physicians reporting time devoted to research in 2007–2009.

doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2013.01.120125 Policy Brief 7

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more likely than men to report devoting �10% of
their time (27% vs 18%). Thirty-one percent of
full-time faculty and 8% of part-time faculty mem-
bers participated in research, compared with 2.5%
of nonfaculty members. Participation was relatively
equal across ages.

The effort to promote translation of research
into primary care requires more family physi-
cians to be trained as researchers and translators.
Family medicine organizations should renew
support to build research capacity and push fam-
ily physicians to incorporate scholarly activity
into their practice behavior through targeted
continuing medical education/maintenance of
certification activities and through assistance with
federally mandated quality improvement initiatives.
Research advocates and governmental organizations,
particularly the National Institutes of Health, should
increase the funds available to support a primary care

research agenda to enable broader participation of
family physicians dedicating sufficient time to im-
portant research endeavors.

References
1. Dickinson WP, Stange KC, Ebell MH, Ewigman BG,

Green LA. Involving all family physicians and family
medicine faculty members in the use and generation
of new knowledge. Fam Med 2000;32:480 –90.

2. What does it mean to build research capacity? Fam
Med 2002;34:678 – 84.

3. Hsiao CJ, Cherry DK, Beatty PC, Rechtsteiner EA.
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2007
summary. Natl Health Stat Report 2010;(27):1–32.

4. Lucan SC, Phillips RL Jr, Bazemore AW. Off the
roadmap? Family medicine’s grant funding and com-
mittee representation at NIH. Ann Fam Med 2008;6:
534 – 42.

5. Ley TJ, Rosenberg LE. The physician-scientist career
pipeline in 2005: build it, and they will come. JAMA
2005;294:1343–51.

8 JABFM January–February 2013 Vol. 26 No. 1 http://www.jabfm.org

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