Training of the next generation of biostatisticians: a call to action in the U.S.

Two workshops (2001, 2003) were held by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to examine the need to train more biostatisticians in the U.S. to meet the increasing opportunities in the biomedical research enterprise. The supply of new PhD graduates in biostatistics in the U.S. has been relatively steady for the past two decades while the demand has increased dramatically. These workshops concluded that a renewed effort must be made in the U.S., led in part by the NIH, to add to and expand the existing training programs to increase the supply. This article summarizes those two workshops and their recommendations. Some progress has been made through a new biostatistics training program with emphasis in bioinformatics sponsored by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).