Figure 17. Patterns of Strategic Research Emphasis by Type of Funder in 2010 Autism Publications.

Radar graph.  There are 6 radial axes on the graph, representing six of the seven critical question research areas.  Question 7, Infrastructure and Surveillance, is omitted from this graph for figure clarity.  Along each axis are tick marks representing the proportion of publications that map to each of the critical questions, from 0% to 50%.  Six colored lines on the graph plot the proportion of publications within each of the six critical question categories for 6 following groups:  US government funders, US private funders, non US funders, US government plus a non US funder, total publications regardless of funder type, and publications that did not acknowledge a funding source.   For all of the groups, the highest proportion of publications is in the Biology critical question category, representing about 50% of publications supported by US government, US private funders, non US funders, and US government plus non US funders.  The proportion of total publications that fall in Biology is approximately 40% and it is approximately 35% of publications that did not cite a funding source.  Other patterns show that publications that received funding from both a US government and a non-US source were relatively more likely to be related to Risk Factors than the other funder types, and publications that did not acknowledge a funding source at all were more likely to fall into the categories of Treatments and Interventions, Services, and Lifespan Issues research.