BMJ  2004;329:110 (10 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7457.110

Letter

Representation of authors and editors from poor countries

Observed publication bias may reflect who is funding research

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Despite research in tropical medicine being undertaken in countries from low human development index, authorship and editorial opinion remain with countries from higher development index. This unfair trend observed by Keiser et al demands to be addressed and overturned.1

Credit: BETTY PRESS/PANOS

This observed bias may arise because countries of high human development index fund the bulk of research in tropical medicine.2 3 Authors from these countries have prepared the grant applications, taken principal investigator status, and believe that they should take primary or terminal authorship. Researchers from low human development index countries can break this cycle only if they can obtain international funding themselves or are allowed authorship by the principal investigators. It seems this is rarely extended to the collaborators in tropical countries, even though they are the ones practically conducting the study.

If such generosity in authorship and mentorship were provided, this would enable researchers from . . . [Full text of this article]

Ranjit Manchanda, specialist registrar obstetrics and gynaecology

Bedford Hospital, Bedford MK42 9DJ ranjitsupriya@yahoo.co.uk

Rajesh Varma, MRC fellow in obstetrics and gynaecology

Academic Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Birmingham Women's Hospital, Birmingham B15 2TG r.varma@bham.ac.uk


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Relevant Article

Representation of authors and editors from countries with different human development indexes in the leading literature on tropical medicine: survey of current evidence
Jennifer Keiser, Jürg Utzinger, Marcel Tanner, and Burton H Singer
BMJ 2004 328: 1229-1232. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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