Estimates of global production in cardiovascular diseases research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2004.11.005Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the contribution of different world regions in cardiovascular research production.

Methods

The world was divided into 9 regions based on a combination of geographic, economic and scientific criteria. Using the Medline database, we retrieved articles from 77 journals included in the “Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems” category of the “Journal Citation Reports” database for the period 1995–2002. We then, estimated the total number of publications, their mean impact factor, the product of these two parameters, the research productivity per billion of US dollars spent on research and development, and the research productivity per number of scientists-years in research and development for different world regions.

Results

Data on the country of origin for the authors was available for 86,711 out of 87,939 retrieved articles (98.6%). The majority of articles published between 1995–2002 were originated from Western Europe (39.4%) and the USA (37.1%). The USA, Oceania and Canada had the highest mean impact factor of published articles and Eastern Europe had the lowest. The research productivity per unit of expenditure for research and development was found to be significantly higher for Canada compared to the USA and Western Europe while the rate of increase in the number of published articles was higher in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia. The research contribution of Africa in the number of published articles was notably very low (0.3%).

Conclusions

The data suggest a promising trend: developing world regions, with the important exception of Africa, achieved a higher rate of increase in the number of published articles in the studied period.

Introduction

Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of mortality in the developed world and a significant cause of mortality in the developing world [1]. The scientific community dedicates a considerable amount of research funds in an attempt to improve scientists' knowledge in the etiology and management of cardiovascular diseases.

Several studies have examined the contribution of specific countries and larger areas in different scientific disciplines. However, little is known in the medical literature about the contribution of different world regions to scientific research in the field of cardiac and cardiovascular diseases, including both developed and developing countries.

We sought to examine the quantity and quality of research produced in the area of cardiac and cardiovascular diseases, around the world, as it is represented by the published articles in the electronic database Medline (Index Medicus-PubMed) [2] of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) [3] between 1995 and 2002. We also evaluated the relationship of research productivity with funds spent on research and development, as well as the number of scientists involved in each region.

Section snippets

World regions

For the purpose of our study, the world was divided into 9 regions based on a combination of geographic, economic and scientific criteria [4]. The 9 regions are Western Europe, the United States of America (USA), Japan, Canada, Asia, Eastern Europe, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. All former socialist countries of Europe and Turkey were included in the category of Eastern Europe. Greenland was designated as Western Europe. Japan was studied as a separate region compared to

Results

A total of 87,939 articles indexed in Pubmed, which were in the “Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems” category of the JCR for the period 1995–2002, were included in our study. We were able to retrieve 86,711 articles (98.6%) and categorised them according to the country of origin based on the methodology described earlier.

In Table 1, we present the total production of articles by world region, and the relative contribution of each region to the total number of articles, from all journals that

Discussion

To our knowledge this is the first study that evaluates the relative contribution of all world regions in research productivity in the field of cardiovascular diseases in the period 1995–2002. Although Western Europe published more articles than USA, it ranked second to USA regarding the mean impact factor of published articles, the number of published articles multiplied by their impact factor, and the association between gross domestic product and number of published articles multiplied by

References (22)

  • G.F. Gensini et al.

    The impact factor: a factor of impact or the impact of a (sole) factor? The limits of a bibliometric indicator as a candidate for an instrument to evaluate scientific production

    Ann. Ital. Med. Interna

    (1999)
  • Cited by (55)

    • Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures publications in PubMed: Geographical distribution of the publications

      2019, Seizure
      Citation Excerpt :

      While, the Western countries (e.g., North America and Europe) may focus on the largely unresolved issues such as epidemiology, neurobiology and treatment strategies in PNES, developing nations may focus on the semiology and psychopathology of PNES in their regions (since even data on well-published topics is still needed for these latter regions). Of course, the geographical disparity in the scientific productions is not limited to the field of PNES, rather it is widely observed in other fields as well [16,17]; findings for PNES research have followed the general trends and are not unusual in any ways. We should keep in mind that international cross-cultural studies can make important contributions to our understanding of PNES across cultures and borders [14,15,18,19].

    • A bibliometric analysis of investigations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in biological and environmental matrices from 1992 – 2018

      2018, Heliyon
      Citation Excerpt :

      However, articles published in non-WoS-cited journals were not included in this study despite the fact that their content also reflects scientific productivity. This situation is unique to regions with authors who are not English speakers, where researchers publish their findings in local/regional journals of their own language (Rosmarakis et al., 2005). Secondly, not all research on the analysis of this pollutant class is published.

    • Global dental research productivity and its association with human development, gross national income, and political stability

      2015, Journal of Evidence-Based Dental Practice
      Citation Excerpt :

      This concern was further elevated by the transatlantic divide that was observed in medical publishing, with leading American medical journals publishing far fewer papers that are relevant to the developing world, compared to the European counterparts.4 There has been prior research examining metrics of medical research productivity in developing countries.5–9 However, to date there are no published data on the distribution of global dental research productivity and factors at a country level that contribute to this productivity.

    • The wealth of nations and the dissemination of cardiovascular research

      2013, International Journal of Cardiology
      Citation Excerpt :

      Our results are based on a five-year bibliometric follow-up of a cohort of cardiovascular studies representative for over 10,000 abstracts from 63 different countries. Most previous studies are based on only one level of research dissemination such as the number of published documents and/or the impact factor of the journals in which the research was published [2,3,16,17]. In this study, three different levels of dissemination of scientific knowledge, i.e. acceptance at the ESC congress 2006, publication in peer-reviewed journals (including the respective impact factor), and the subsequent study-specific citation rates have been assessed separately.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text