(PS8-C69) Is Borderline Personality Disorder Research Underfunded? An Analysis of Canadian Federal Grant Funding Patterns

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe and life-threatening mental illness that impacts 2.7% of adults. Although the distress, functional impairment, and mortality rate of BPD are comparable to bipolar disorder, a 2014 study suggested that BPD research received less funding than bipolar disorder from the National Institute of Health (Zimmerman & Gazarian, 2014). BPD is both clinically and academically stigmatized and subject to claims that people with BPD are manipulative and untreatable, despite evidence to the contrary. The effects of this stigma may extend to funding patterns – specifically, whether researchers pursue BPD research, and whether grant reviewers fund it. Without adequate funding, it is hard to imagine how researchers could identify pathways to greater wellness for people with BPD. It remains unclear whether BPD research remains underfunded in 2022, and whether such patterns extend to Canada. Furthermore, it is unclear how funding levels for BPD research compare to a broader array of disorders with similar prevalence and lethality rates. Identifying the extent to which BPD research may be underfunded is critical to illuminating a key barrier to wellness, joy, and fulfillment for a population in desperate need of it. Therefore, the present study examined whether BPD research is underfunded compared to research on bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders, and eating disorders. The Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) is akin to the United States National Institute of Health as it is a federal source of funding for health research. The CIHR database was used to identify all grants funded by the CIHR between 1999 and 2022 with terms related to the disorders of interest. Coders then categorized grants by their disorder of primary focus. Univariate analyses of variance were run to investigate differences between mental health conditions across three outcomes between 1999 and 2022: 1) the number of grants funded per year, 2) total grant dollars per year, and 3) the average dollar value of grants per year. Analyses were re-run for grants awarded between 2015 and 2022 to determine if funding patterns have changed in recent years. Results indicate a main effect of mental health condition on the total number of grants, total grant dollars, and average dollars per grant between 1999 and 2022 (F(3, 92) = 112.67, p < .001, η² = .79; F(3, 92) = 66.90, p < .001, η² = .67; F(3, 77) = 6.96, p < .001, η² = .21). Post-hoc contrasts reveal that BPD research was awarded fewer grants and fewer grant dollars than bipolar and psychotic disorder research. Eating disorder research, not BPD research, received fewer dollars per grant than all comparators. These results were largely replicated for grants awarded from 2015 to 2022. This indicates that BPD research is underfunded, and that, contrary to our hypothesis, eating disorders research is similarly if not more underfunded. While the precise reasons behind underfunding are unclear, highlighting underfunding is the first step toward dismantling barriers in BPD and eating disorders research and ultimately alleviating suffering and cultivating joy in these under-served populations.