The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funds research on mental disorders and HIV/AIDS. An article on their website, “The Anatomy of NIMH Funding,” shows a bar graph depicting funding of these disorders over the last few years (see below).
The prevalence of BPD in the US (currently estimated up to a staggering 18 million people) is greater than either depression or schizophrenia, yet as you can see from the graph NIMH funding falls far below each one of these disorders. Funding for BPD is, for example, only 2% of the funding for depression. Families for BPD Research was born out of a compelling need to address the gaping research deficit.
Figure 4: Data represent NIMH investments coded to specific disorders, either through the RCDC report or the NIMH manual coding system (marked as *) for disorders not monitored via RCDC. Reductions in 2013 reflect an overall drop in funding that year. (PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder; OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder; ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.)
