RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Impact of Financial Incentives and Department Size on Scholarly Activity Output
JF The Annals of Family Medicine
JO Ann Fam Med
FD American Academy of Family Physicians
SP 66
OP 72
DO 10.1370/afm.240061
VO 23
IS 1
A1 Munroe, Dominique D.
A1 Villalon-Gomez, Jose
A1 Seehusen, Dean A.
A1 Moore, Miranda A.
YR 2025
UL http://www.annfammed.org/content/23/1/66.abstract
AB PURPOSE Family medicine research is essential to improving population health. It has the unique ability to answer questions about health care outcomes and use those insights to impact communities. Increasing research capacity continues to be a challenge; however, recent literature has touted the success of incentivization in several academic medicine specialties. We used the 2022 CERA annual Family Medicine Department Chair survey to characterize the amount and type of scholarly activities by institutional financial incentive status (yes or no) and type (flat vs variable amount), to investigate the relationship between financial incentives and scholarly output.METHODS Questions included targeted demographic variables, institutional incentives, and family medicine department scholarly output. Summary statistics and logistical regression analyses were conducted.RESULTS The overall survey response rate was 47.1% (106/225). Respondents reported financial incentives were allowed at 41 (38.7%) of 106 institutions. Of these, 19 (17.9%) reported clinical faculty received cash-based incentives, while 34 (32.1%) received noncash–based incentives for engaging in scholarly activity. The main barriers to offering financial incentives were institutional budget constraints and department culture or tradition. Financial incentives were not statistically associated with scholarly output; however, faculty size was statistically significant for giving more than 6 presentations (adjusted odds ratio = 0.20; 95% CI, 0.054-0.739).CONCLUSIONS Institutions aiming to increase their family medicine department scholarly productivity might benefit from focusing resources on increasing their faculty size such as adding consultants, statistical analysts, grant writers, or other research staff.