Your Grant in Review: Power analysis and the Vertebrate Animals Section

As a reminder, the NIH issued warning on upcoming Simplification of the Vertebrate Animals Section of NIH Grant Applications and Contract Proposals.

Simplification! Cool, right?

There’s a landmine here.

For years the statistical power analysis was something that I included in the General Methods at the end of my Research Strategy section. In more recent times, a growing insistence on the part of the OLAW that a proper Vertebrate Animals Section include the power analysis has influenced me to drop the power analysis from the Research Strategy. It became a word for word duplication so it seemed worth the risk to regain the page space.

The notice says:

Summary of Changes
The VAS criteria are simplified by the following changes:

• A description of veterinary care is no longer required.

• Justification for the number of animals has been eliminated.

• A description of the method of euthanasia is required only if the method is not consistent with AVMA guidelines.

 

This means that if I continue with my current strategy, I’m going to start seeing complaints about “where is the power analysis” and “hey buddy, stop trying to evade page limits by putting it in the VAS“.

So back to the old way we must go. Leave space for your power analysis, folks.
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If you don’t know much about doing a power analysis, this website is helpful: http://homepage.stat.uiowa.edu/~rlenth/Power/