By Richard Dehn, MPA, PA-C
Co-chair, APAP Research Institute

Over the last decade APAP’s promotion of PA faculty research has evolved from a vision of providing funding to independent PA researchers to multiple, annually recurring research grant programs. Two research funding programs have been developed since 1997, and a third has been added with the recent vote by the AAPA Board of Directors at its May Meeting in New Orleans to contribute $20,000 annually to APAP for research. The AAPA Research Advisory Subcommittee sponsored this proposal, and the motion to implement it was made by AAPA Director at Large, Gregor Bennett. The Academy’s generous donation provides an increase of 50 percent in the amount that APAP dedicates to PA research and raises the total to $60,000 annually. Combined, these three programs generate a significant portion of the research currently being done on, and within, the PA profession.

Although the timing and the proposal guidelines of the new AAPA/APAP grants process have not yet been determined, projects will be encouraged to answer questions of importance to both organizations — most likely in the areas of workforce and health policy. APAP and the AAPA will partner to administer the process. A committee consisting of three appointees from each organization will be charged with writing the proposal guidelines and selecting proposals to be funded.

Eight years ago an allocation of $20,000 was made available for grants under the auspices of the newly created APAP Research Institute. The program was designed to encourage PA faculty interested in research to get their feet wet. Thus the guidelines were designed around the concepts of simplicity, brevity, and small scale. This philosophy continues today in the Research Institute’s Small Grants Program. Its fundamental characteristics include its short time line (one year), low grant limits ($5,000), and broad scope, making it an ideal vehicle for a researcher’s first project as well as for pilot research projects. A complete listing of the many projects supported since 1997 through the small grants program is available on the Research and Review Committee’s Web site. Select projects follow:

• Publication Productivity of PA Faculty
• Comparing PA Education Program Attributes by Certification Scores
• Current Use of Distance Learning and PA Education
• Cognitive Mapping of PA Student Service-Learning Experiences
• PAs in Urban Family Practice Settings: A Descriptive and Comparative Study of a National Sample
• Scope of Health Promotion Programs for PA Students
• The Effect of Student Perceived Harassment on The Student’s Overall Perception of The PA Educational Experience
• A Pilot Study of the Effects of Stress on Academic Performance during the First Year of PA Education
• A Survey to Assess Medical Market Demand for PA Graduates
• An Analysis of PA Postgraduate Residency Training in the United States
• PA Preparation for Patient Education
• A Retrospective Analysis of PA Student Career Motivations and Subsequent Career Decisions
• Documenting Educational Outcomes in PA Practice
• Rejuvenating the PA Mission: Helping Rural and Urban Medically Underserved Communities
• PA Faculty Attitudes Towards Graduate Academic Preparation
• Office-based Procedures in Primary Care
• Identification and Analysis of Skills Utilized by PA Program Directors in Performing Their Job Responsibilities
• How Do PAs’ Educational Programs Define and Implement PBL?
• PAs and Geriatric Medicine: Possible Impediments for Employment
• Interactions between PA Programs and Pharmaceutical Companies
• Are Patients Satisfied with Physician Assistant Care?

In 2001, through the efforts of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) Research Committee and the APAP Research Institute, APAP expanded its research grants from one to two. The new addition was funded by the NCCPA and administered jointly with APAP. Through NCCPA’s generosity and commitment to PA research, an additional $20,000 annually was made available for faculty research grants.

The initial aim of the NCCPA/APAP Research Grants Program was to encourage PA research on a larger scale than what had been possible in the small grants program. Although the NCCPA/APAP submission guidelines state a preference for projects addressing evaluation and competence measures, proposals addressing questions in PA education and the profession have also been encouraged. The NCCPA/APAP grants differ from the small grants in terms of their longer project timelines (two years) and the potential for higher maximum awards (up to $20,000). All proposals funded to date as part of the NCCPA/APAP Research Grants Process follow:

• Advice Seeking Practices of PAs: A Prospective Study of Methods to Assess Consultation and Referral Behavior
• Which Factors Influence Individual Performance on the PANCE?
• Do PAs Practicing in Non-Primary Care Specialties Participate in Primary Care Clinical Activities?
• The Graduate Record Examination and Undergraduate Grade Point Average as Predictors of First-Year Academic Performance in Graduate Level PA Programs
• What Do PAs Prescribe?
• Attitudes of Psychiatrists toward Employment of PAs in Psychiatry/Behavioral Medicine
• Teaching Professionalism in PA Education
• The Doctoral Pipeline in PA Education

With APAP’s relatively recent expansion to two different grant processes, and the addition of a third, some degree of confusion has ensued about the grants’ guidelines. The three grant processes will likely develop into distinctly separate entities, each with its own research goals. The characteristics of each of the APAP research grant programs are summarized in the following table:

PA researchers — and those interested in becoming PA researchers — now have more funding opportunities available than ever, and APAP would like to encourage its members to participate. If you have any questions on developing a research idea into a grant proposal, contact me at richard-dehn@uiowa.edu, 319/335-8925. The research we undertake on our profession is an important key to our future. Through the generosity of the NCCPA and the AAPA, APAP has created the foundation for us to conduct more research, and those who envisioned these possibilities have seen them come to fruition. It is important to our profession’s future that we respond to this challenge.

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