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How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship

Many have called for greater inclusion of researchers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the conduct of global health research, yet the extent to which this occurs is unclear. Prior studies are journal-, subject-, or region-specific, largely rely on manual review, and yield varying est...

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Autores principales: Dimitris, Michelle C, Gittings, Matthew, King, Nicholas B
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7843301/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33500263
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003758
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author Dimitris, Michelle C
Gittings, Matthew
King, Nicholas B
author_facet Dimitris, Michelle C
Gittings, Matthew
King, Nicholas B
author_sort Dimitris, Michelle C
collection PubMed
description Many have called for greater inclusion of researchers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the conduct of global health research, yet the extent to which this occurs is unclear. Prior studies are journal-, subject-, or region-specific, largely rely on manual review, and yield varying estimates not amenable to broad evaluation of the literature. We conducted a large-scale investigation of the contribution of LMIC-affiliated researchers to published global health research and examined whether this contribution differed over time. We searched titles, abstracts, and keywords for the names of countries ever classified as low-, lower middle-, or upper middle-income by the World Bank, and limited our search to items published from 2000 to 2017 in health science-related journals. Publication metadata were obtained from Elsevier/Scopus and analysed in statistical software. We calculated proportions of publications with any, first, and last authors affiliated with any LMIC as well as the same LMIC(s) identified in the title/abstract/keywords, and stratified analyses by year, country, and countries’ most common income status. We analysed 786 779 publications and found that 86.0% included at least one LMIC-affiliated author, while 77.2% and 71.2% had an LMIC-affiliated first or last author, respectively; however, analagous proportions were only 58.7%, 36.8%, and 29.1% among 100 687 publications about low-income countries. Proportions of publications with LMIC-affiliated authors increased over time, yet this observation was driven by high research activity and representation among upper middle-income countries. Between-country variation in representation was observed, even within income status categories. We invite comment regarding these findings, particularly from voices underrepresented in this field.
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spelling pubmed-78433012021-01-29 How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship Dimitris, Michelle C Gittings, Matthew King, Nicholas B BMJ Glob Health Original Research Many have called for greater inclusion of researchers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the conduct of global health research, yet the extent to which this occurs is unclear. Prior studies are journal-, subject-, or region-specific, largely rely on manual review, and yield varying estimates not amenable to broad evaluation of the literature. We conducted a large-scale investigation of the contribution of LMIC-affiliated researchers to published global health research and examined whether this contribution differed over time. We searched titles, abstracts, and keywords for the names of countries ever classified as low-, lower middle-, or upper middle-income by the World Bank, and limited our search to items published from 2000 to 2017 in health science-related journals. Publication metadata were obtained from Elsevier/Scopus and analysed in statistical software. We calculated proportions of publications with any, first, and last authors affiliated with any LMIC as well as the same LMIC(s) identified in the title/abstract/keywords, and stratified analyses by year, country, and countries’ most common income status. We analysed 786 779 publications and found that 86.0% included at least one LMIC-affiliated author, while 77.2% and 71.2% had an LMIC-affiliated first or last author, respectively; however, analagous proportions were only 58.7%, 36.8%, and 29.1% among 100 687 publications about low-income countries. Proportions of publications with LMIC-affiliated authors increased over time, yet this observation was driven by high research activity and representation among upper middle-income countries. Between-country variation in representation was observed, even within income status categories. We invite comment regarding these findings, particularly from voices underrepresented in this field. BMJ Publishing Group 2021-01-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7843301/ /pubmed/33500263 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003758 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research
Dimitris, Michelle C
Gittings, Matthew
King, Nicholas B
How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
title How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
title_full How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
title_fullStr How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
title_full_unstemmed How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
title_short How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
title_sort how global is global health research? a large-scale analysis of trends in authorship
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7843301/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33500263
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003758
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