The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) cut dozens of grants last week, issuing what appeared to be batch termination notices to researchers.
Termination letters shared with MedPage Today and posted online had similar wording, noting that AHRQ "is adjusting its discretionary health services research award portfolio in order to better prioritize agency resources."
In many cases, funding had been stalled and researchers had been left in the dark about the status of their grants for a long period of time prior to receiving the notices.
"For months, AHRQ had effectively stopped issuing continuation funding for many existing grants, but researchers had received little formal explanation," Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS, president and CEO of AcademyHealth, which has been tracking changes at AHRQ, told MedPage Today. Last week, he said, "investigators across the country began receiving official notices stating that continuation funding will not be awarded."
"This isn't just about researchers losing grants," he added. "These projects study how to reduce hospital infections, improve patient safety, lower costs, integrate behavioral health into primary care, and train the next generation of health services researchers. When that work stops, the people who ultimately lose are patients and the health systems trying to deliver better care."
Mark Clapp, MD, MPH, a maternal-fetal medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, had two research projects funded by AHRQ, and both had been starved of funding since last August. Both had been approved in August 2024 as 5-year projects, but neither received the standard non-competitive renewal notice after the first year, he said.
While one project has already shut down, the other -- a randomized controlled trial -- has "been kind of limping along" as he actively searches for alternative funders, he noted.
"I was not expecting [AHRQ funding] to ever come back, but I guess there was always some glimmer of hope that the money that had been appropriated would come through," Clapp told MedPage Today.
That trial was evaluating how to best reconnect women with their primary care physician after giving birth.
Nora Becker, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, also saw her AHRQ funding stall in September 2025. Three years earlier, she had been awarded a grant to study what happens to people financially after they've had COVID.
When her non-competitive renewal notice didn't come through last fall, her institution started picking up the tab.
"It can't continue indefinitely, and it's been really stressful," Becker told MedPage Today. "I've been applying for grants frantically to find alternative funding."
Both Clapp and Becker are submitting grant applications to the NIH in hopes that it will be interested in their projects -- though they acknowledge the NIH typically funds more basic science or new discoveries, while AHRQ has been focused on health services research.
AcademyHealth said it has learned of more than 45 researchers and institutions who have received cancellation notices. Multiple types of awards are affected, including research grants, career development awards, institutional training grants, and research infrastructure programs.
The group said that AHRQ has not been functioning "as Congress intended after mass firings and resignations under pressure left the agency with roughly 20% of its staff."
Indeed, Clapp sits on a study section for AHRQ, which is charged with reviewing grants submitted to the agency. That study section hasn't met since February 2025; meetings in June and October were cancelled, he said.
AHRQ's U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has also been targeted by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose latest move was to fire its two vice chairs. Many of the panel's meetings had been abruptly cancelled.
"The changes affecting the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the cancellation of AHRQ-funded research both reflect significant changes in how AHRQ is operating under the current administration," Carroll said.
"Our concern is broader than any single program," he added. "AHRQ exists to generate and translate evidence that helps make healthcare safer, higher quality, and more affordable. Whether it's supporting the USPSTF, funding research, or improving patient safety, weakening that infrastructure ultimately affects the evidence clinicians, health systems, and policymakers rely on to improve care."