Health Research Funding Agencies’ Policies, Recommendations, and Tools for Dissemination

The Problem: Dissemination is a key component of translational research. However, research participants rarely receive findings from the studies in which they have participated. Funding agencies have a significant amount of influence to promote research dissemination through requirements, recommendations, and tools. However, it is not clear to what extent current funding agencies promote dissemination to study participants.

Purpose of Article: A review of major health research funders was conducted to ascertain the current policies, recommendations, and tools related to 1) academic dissemination, 2) lay community dissemination, and 3) returning results to research participants.

Key Points: Several agencies have policies, recommendations, and tools for academic dissemination; however, few have the same policies, recommendations, and tools for dissemination to research participants and the lay communities they are recruited from.

Conclusions: Funding agencies have a unique opportunity to encourage the dissemination of research results to research participants and lay community audiences by developing policies to increase dissemination of grantees’ research findings.