Abstract
BackgroundTrying to confront with the widespread burden of infectious diseases, the society worldwide invests considerably on research. We evaluated the contribution of different world regions in research production in Infectious Diseases.MethodsUsing the online Pubmed database we retrieved articles from 38 journals included in the "Infectious Diseases" category of the "Journal Citation Reports" database of the Institute for Scientific Information for the period 1995–2002. The world was divided into 9 regions based on geographic, economic and scientific criteria. Using an elaborate retrieval system we obtained data on published articles from different world regions. In our evaluation we introduced an estimate of both quantity and quality of research produced from each world region per year using: (1) the total number of publications, (2) the mean impact factor of publications, and (3) the product of the above two parameters.ResultsData on the country of origin of the research was available for 45,232 out of 45,922 retrieved articles (98.5 %). USA and Western Europe are by far the most productive regions concerning publications of research articles. However, the rate of increase in the production of articles was higher in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia during the study period. The mean impact factor is highest for articles originating in the USA (3.42), while it was 2.82 for Western Europe and 2.73 for the rest of the world (7 regions combined).ConclusionUSA and Western Europe make up a striking 80% of the world's research production in Infectious Diseases in terms of both quantity and quality. However, all world regions achieved a gradual increase in the production of Infectious Diseases articles, with the regions ranking lower at present displaying the highest rate of increase.
Highlights
Trying to confront with the widespread burden of infectious diseases, the society worldwide invests considerably on research
The United States of America (USA) and Western Europe are the leaders of global biomedical research, their relative contribution varies for different fields of research [1,2,3,4]
The difference between the USA and Western Europe increases when both the number of articles and impact factor are taken into account, due to the higher impact factor that USA had throughout the study period
Summary
Trying to confront with the widespread burden of infectious diseases, the society worldwide invests considerably on research. We evaluated the contribution of different world regions in research production in Infectious Diseases. Old and emerging infectious diseases contribute substantially to morbidity and mortality worldwide. For this reason, the society invests considerably on infectious diseases (page number not for citation purposes). The research productivity by various world regions has been studied for several biomedical fields. Several studies have focused on the scientific production of European Union's countries, in various biomedical fields, including Infectious Diseases [5,6,7]. The literature lacks studies estimating the quantity and quality of worldwide research production in Infectious Diseases. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the contribution of different world regions in scientific research in the field of Infectious Diseases. We evaluated the trends in quality and quantity of published articles from different world regions
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