Research is fundamental to understanding the roles and responsibilities of family physicians and their impacts on health outcomes, which are essential to improving population health. Academic departments of family medicine are consistently relied upon as the major contributors of research in family medicine. A recent study published in Family Medicine, Attitudes and Perceptions of Research Among US Family Medicine Department Chairs, assessed the perceptions about research among department chairs as leaders of academic departments of family medicine.

The survey of 109 family medicine department chairs included questions about the chair’s departmental, institutional, and personal demographics, including attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of department chairs. Developed collaboratively between Family Medicine for America’s Health (FMAHealth), the Association of Departments of Family Medicine (ADFM), and the Council of Academic Family Medicine (CAFM) Educational Research Alliance (CERA), the survey also studied the research capacity of departments of family medicine in the United States.

While 44% of chairs reported having no or minimal research in their department, nearly all respondents agreed or strongly agreed that research was important to the mission of their department and that research productivity raised the prestige of their department. When compared to other departmental focus areas of teaching and clinical service, respondents estimated their department’s focus on research at a mean of 12%, compared to a reported ideal percentage of 21%. Chairs from high-capacity research departments, regardless of personal research experience, reported a greater focus on research in general than those with minimal or moderate research capacity than the mean for all chairs. These findings are much different from a 2000 study of family medicine chairs, which found no difference in chairs’ assessment of research as a departmental priority by research capacity.

Although most chairs believe that research is important to the mission of their department, their perception is that research productivity is not important to their faculty. This inconsistency could be based on institutional politics and pressures that chairs may face, or possibly due to a greater awareness of the research enterprise on the part of chairs, considering that one-third of all chairs considered themselves career researchers. This is a significant change compared to 30 years ago when only 26% of chairs reported receiving any formal training in research.