Research Christmas 2025:
Changes in diversity language in National Institutes of Health grant awards: observational study
Neil Mehta, Anupam B Jena, Joseph P Newhouse
BMJ 2025; 391 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-087222 (Published 11 December 2025)Cite this as: BMJ 2025;391:e087222
Abstract
Objective To assess changes in the prevalence of diversity language in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants in 2024-25.
Design Retrospective longitudinal analysis.
Setting United States.
Sample 17 701 abstracts of research grants awarded by the NIH between 1 January 2024 and 20 June 2025.
Main outcome measures Prevalence of diversity language in NIH awarded grants measured by month. A within grant analysis compared 2024 and 2025 versions of the same grants, and the net change in the number of words reflecting diversity language versus all words was calculated, using thousands of randomly sampled lists generated from the abstracts to provide control words.
Results The rate of words reflecting diversity language decreased sharply between October and November 2024, from 11.11 to 5.42 words per 1000, a 51% relative decrease. The decrease persisted through 2025, with an overall relative decrease of 25% between January 2024 and June 2025. In a within grants analysis, among 1967 pairs of identical grants in 2024 that were non-competitively renewed in 2025, words reflecting diversity language comprised fewer than 1% of all words but accounted for about 10% of all deleted words between 2024 and 2025, with 8.28 words per 1000 deleted. This decrease was lower than that of all randomly sampled lists of control words.
Conclusions Words reflecting diversity language have decreased across the abstracts of research grants awarded by the NIH.
What is already known on this topic
- News reports have indicated that US federal agencies have recently limited or discouraged use of words related to diversity, health inequities, and other scientific subjects commanding political attention in National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants
- Lists of diversity language compiled by news agencies, including words such as “women,” “gender,” and “sexual orientation” have circulated among researchers
- News reports suggest that researchers may be modifying their language or research topics to align with federal priorities
What this study adds
- This study found that words reflecting diversity language have appeared less frequently in NIH grant awards since 2024, with a 25% relative decrease between January 2024 and June 2025
- In a pairwise analysis of the same grants observed in both 2024 and 2025, words reflecting diversity language were deleted from abstracts at a 10-fold higher rate than other words during revisions of non-competing continuation grants
