Biomedical funding has racial gap

“That is incredibly alarming to me,’’ said Dr. Selwyn O. Rogers, division chief of trauma, burns, and surgical critical care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Black scientists who are competing for grants, he said, have already overcome many hurdles known to contribute to racial disparities in achievement. “Once you’ve broken those barriers, I think most Americans would believe the playing field would be level,’’ Rogers said. “If this is the elite, and you can find this achievement gap, what is it like for the rest of America?’’

The gap between black and white scientists could not be explained by differences in training, the home institution of a researcher, the number of papers a scientist had written, or even the applicant’s scientific influence, as measured by the number of times his or her work had been cited by other scientists. The bottom line remained: If 100 white scientists apply for a grant, about 30 would be likely to get one; if 100 black scientists applied, about 20 would be successful, the study found.

No difference was seen between whites and Hispanics in the study, which was led by a University of Kansas economist and the president of Grinnell College in Iowa. Researchers reviewed more than 80,000 grant applications submitted between 2000 and 2006. A small disadvantage in Asians’ success rates seemed to be explained by whether the scientists were US citizens, suggesting language ability might play a role.

“I’m an economist by training, and we believe there should be some rational explanation for why we observe differences in career outcomes - differences in productivity; differences in educational background,’’ said Donna Ginther, the University of Kansas economist who led the study. “We kind of struck out.’’