African Authors Research Articles

Persistent ethnic disparities in authorship within top European and North American medical journals: a serial cross-sectional analysis

We examined the ethnic origin of authors who published research articles in leading medical journals over the past two decades. We carried out a serial cross-sectional analysis of first and last authors who published original research articles in the British Medical Journal, Lancet, Journal of American Medical Association, and New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, 2012, and 2022. The main outcome was the change in proportion of authors over time according to ethnic origin (Anglo, North/West European, South/West European, Asian, Arab and Middle Eastern, African), gender (male, female), and institutional affiliation in percentage points. Most authors were of Anglo descent (44%), although the proportion of non-European authors grew between 2002 and 2022. East Asian, South Asian, and Arab & Middle Eastern last authors accounted for a greater proportion of authors over time, gaining between 3 to 6 percentage points, while African authors made no gains. Gains were gender-specific, with non-European men gaining 8 points as first and last authors, but non-European women gaining 5 points as last authors only. Most non-European authors were affiliated with North American (42.9%) or European (22.4%) institutions, while non-European authors from other institutions did not make meaningful gains over time. Ethnic diversity of authors in leading medical journals has increased somewhat over time, but non-European men account for most of the gains. Non-European women have yet to make comparable advancement as authors.

Unjust: Publishing Black and African American Children’s Books and School Availability

Traditional book publishing has a pronounced and unjust deficiency of Black and African American voices. White culture, thoughts, and rules are the standard in traditional publishing. Black and African American authors are not typically picked up by white-dominated publishing companies. In traditional publishing, mostly white literary agents are gatekeepers and acquisition editors shut the doors too frequently to non-white authors. Aspiring Black authors then resort to hybrid or vanity press companies that often use unscrupulous practices, charge exorbitant fees, accomplish little or low-quality work, and deny authors’ agency and full rights in the final disposition of a book. Because a majority of traditionally published children’s books featuring Black or African American stories or characters are written by or illustrated by non-Black people, the wide possibilities of adventure, celebrations, discovery, and friendship stories are not published for Black children. Instead, publishers favor stories about slavery, the civil rights movement, famous Black people, and hair tales as well as racially ambiguous characters. Regrettably, Black and African American culturally relevant stories written and illustrated by Black or African Americans are not readily available to children in school and library settings consistent with schools’ community or student demographics. This article shares research findings and viewpoints of Kathy Anderson and Karen Bowlding, two Black children’s book writers and publishing consultants who are also parents. Black and African American students encounter education and cultural injustice because of the practices of traditional publishing companies, educators, and librarians. Parents and guardians can ameliorate these issues with discernment and action. Foremost, publishing company decision-makers must acknowledge their own racial biases that deny representation and authenticity to all children in our US classrooms.

Comparison of Instructions to Authors and Reporting of Ethics Components in Selected African Biomedical Journals: 2008 and 2017.

Journal editors instruct authors to describe human participant protections in original research reports. However, little is known about African biomedical journal authors' adherence to such journal editors' instructions. This study investigated changes in editors' instructions to authors and authors' reporting of research ethics information in selected African biomedical journals between 2008 and 2017. Twelve selected journal websites and online articles were reviewed in Eastern, Southern, and Western African [ESWA] countries. A pre-tested schema and a checklist were used to collect data from journal websites and articles published in 2008 and 2017, and the data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Half of the journals requested prospective authors to disclose ethics approval and related issues in their manuscripts between 2008 and 2017. There was a significant increase in instructions to authors regarding information on the protection of research participants within this period; more authors complied with these requirements in 2017 than in 2007.

Diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of Fournier’s gangrene in Africa: a scoping review protocol

Abstract Fournier’s gangrene is a rare necrotizing soft-tissue infection affecting the perineal, perianal and genital regions. It constitutes a genuine medical, surgical and urological emergency. Despite a better understanding of the etiology and pathophysiology of Fournier’s gangrene, mortality rates reported in the literature remain high. Still very common in Africa, it seems to occur mainly during hot, dry months and particularly affects people of low socio-economic status. This explains why the diagnosis is often made at a late stage. To our knowledge, there is no literature evaluating the epidemiology, clinical presentation, management and prognosis of Fournier’s gangrene in Africa, necessitating a review of the scope. This literature review protocol describes how the authors intend to study the available data on the presentation, management and prognosis of Fournier’s gangrene in Africa. Databases such as PubMed/Medline, Embase, Google Scholar and African Journal Online will be searched for articles published on Fournier’s gangrene in Africa and covering clinical, therapeutic and prognostic outcomes. The sociodemographic profile of all included studies will be examined. Results will include epidemiological, clinico-biological, severity score, management and prognostic data. Based on the analyzed results, the various parameters linked to the specific objectives of the African and non-African studies will be discussed and compared. This discussion will focus on clinical presentation, management and prognosis. This scoping review will be the first to address this research question, which has yet to be reported serially by African authors.

Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s 1915 Pennsylvania Suffrage Speaking Tour Scrapbook

ABSTRACT In 1915 woman’s suffrage was on the ballot in Pennsylvania. State suffrage organizations mounted a vibrant campaign using a variety of strategies in support of enfranchising the women of the Keystone State. Speakers played a central role in this campaign, including a four-month lecture tour by African American author and educator, Alice Dunbar-Nelson. She kept a scrapbook of her tour that reveals her recognition of its historical significance. Her scrapbook also highlights the role of African American women who worked toward the goal of voting rights for all in Pennsylvania. Finally, it illuminates the strategies used by Pennsylvania suffrage leaders. While the men of the state voted down the suffrage referendum in 1915, the hard work of suffragists, including Dunbar-Nelson and other African Americans, paid off four years later when Pennsylvania became the seventh state to ratify the nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution on June 24, 1919.

Pediatric cancer research trends and performance in Africa: A bibliometric analysis from 1991 to 2022

BackgroundChildhood cancer rates in Africa are lower than in high-income countries but increasing, making pediatric cancers a significant public health concern. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of the publication of pediatric cancer research in Africa, including publication types and citation trends over time. MethodsThe Science Citation Index Expanded database within the Web of Science Core Collection was searched for articles published from 1991 to 2022 in the topic domain, using title, abstract, author keywords, and KeyWords Plus. Indicators used to assess publications performance of the countries included: total number of publications, single-country publications, collaborative publications with African countries, collaborative publications with non-African countries, first-author publications, corresponding-author publications, and single-author publications. ResultsA total of 4461 relevant documents were retrieved, with 2770 original research articles. Annual number of articles rose from 13 articles in 1991 to 287 in 2022. Most articles were produced by Egypt (28 %) in North Africa, followed by South Africa (20 %) in sub-Saharan Africa. Collaboration between African countries remains low; however, international collaborations have enhanced the average number of citations per article. Most of the first authors (65 %) and corresponding authors (67 %) of these international collaborative articles were affiliated with non-African institutions. ConclusionsThe number of publications sharply increased over the study period and diversely represents African countries. Collaborations with international partners increased citations; however, few of these publications had African first authors. Conversely, inter-institutional partnerships between African countries were relatively low, highlighting the need for better collaboration within Africa.

The Child Protagonist: Children’s Agency in International Children’s Rights Law and in Four Francophone African Novels

In this article, I explore how the contested notion of children’s agency is represented in international children’s rights law and in four novels by francophone African authors. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child establish children as rights holding subjects within a framework of adult care, while the fictional texts position children as protagonists, deprived of adult protection amid conflict and social upheaval. In both, children are understood as acting and acted upon, forming and formed by their environment. Through the utopian vision of children’s rights law and the damaged child narratives of the fictional texts, children’s agency can be read as a critique of adult society. At the same time, children are recognized as active participants in history, their choices and actions, however determined, shaping their own future selves and society.

True Women as Sacred Friends

Drawing from African American author and anti-slavery advocate Harriet Jacobs, this essay demonstrates that even well-intentioned white abolitionists can inadvertently reinforce racist systems. Jacobs sought help from white abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe to share her emancipation story, but received a response that exposed her past to Jacobs’s employer without consent. In her novelized memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs demonstrates the importance of Black voices and leaders in the abolitionist movement, showcasing feminist scholar Chandra Mohanty's concept of a “coalition” of women using their diverse positions to combat social inequities. By examining Jacobs's portrayal of the white women who aided her, I argue that Jacobs employs the rhetoric of true womanhood and sentimental novels to depict models of true allyship marked by consent-based sympathy. This essay delves into the nuances between sympathy and empathy in the context of nineteenth-century literature, referencing Gay Gibson Cima's assertion that these terms cannot be collapsed. By connecting Jacobs's use of sentimentality to Cima's differentiation between Black expressions of sympathy and empathy, this essay reveals how Jacobs strategically fosters empathetic connections between white and enslaved women, promoting a coalition of consent-based allyship in nineteenth-century abolitionist discourse.

Factors associated with social determinants of health mentions in PubMed clinical case reports from 1975 to 2022: A natural language processing analysis

Social determinants of health (SDoH) significantly influence health outcomes, accounting for nearly 40% of such outcomes globally. These determinants, pivotal in understanding health disparities, are insufficiently documented in clinical settings and academic clinical narratives. To address this gap, we examined clinical case reports from PubMed (1975–2022) to identify mentions of six specific SDoH, employing a pre-trained named-entity recognition (NER) model from Spark natural language processing (NLP). Multivariate logistic regression was utilized to investigate associations between article characteristics and the documentation of SDoH. From 463,546 reports, 4.4% mentioned SDoH, with race/ethnicity being the most dominant mention. Race/ethnicity was often cited by sub-Saharan African authors (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 4.47) and in general medicine (AOR: 2.18). Marital status mentions appeared predominantly in psychiatry (AOR: 2.60) and gynecology (AOR: 2.47). Sexual orientation mentions were correlated with infectious diseases (AOR: 25.00) and varied by authorship regions, with stronger associations observed in South America (AOR: 4.04) and North America (AOR: 2.15), and comparatively weaker associations noted in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East (AOR: 0.16). Immigrant status mentions were closely related to infectious diseases (AOR: 4.51), gynecology (AOR: 4.25), and certain geographies. Homelessness mentions were more prominent in forensic medicine (AOR: 14.92) and in both infections (AOR: 6.36) and mental disorders (AOR: 5.80). Spiritual belief mentions were more prominent with sub-Saharan authors (AOR: 9.17) and psychiatry (AOR: 7.61). SDoH mentions in medical literature were also determined by the diagnosis, cultural background, and journal type. The limited SDoH registration emphasized their overlooked significance. Disproportionate emphasis on specific relationships, such as sexual orientation with infectious diseases, can perpetuate biases and stereotypes. Innovative tools such as Spark NLP offer promise in advancing research using electronic health records (EHRs), but a standardized approach to SDoH reporting and vigilant AI training is crucial for unbiased health-care analysis.

Catalysing global surgery: a meta-research study on factors affecting surgical research collaborations with Africa.

In December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the urgent need for rapid collaboration, research, and interventions. International research collaborations foster more significant responses to rapid global changes by enabling international, multicentre research, decreasing biases, and increasing study validity while reducing overall research time and costs. However, there has been low uptake of collaborative research by African institutions and individuals. To systematically review facilitating factors and challenges to collaborative surgical research studies conducted in Africa. A meta-research review using PubMed®/MEDLINE and Embase on surgical collaboration in Africa from 1st of January 2011 to 31st of September 2021 in accordance to PRISMA guidelines. Surgical studies by collaborative groups involving African authors and sites were included (55 papers). Data on the study period, geographical regions, and research scope, facilitating factors, and challenges were extracted from the studies retrieved from the search. Most of the collaborations in Africa occurred with European institutions (76%). Of the 54 African countries, 63% (34/54) participated in surgical collaborations. The highest collaboration frequency occurred in South Africa (11%) and Nigeria (8%). However, most publications originated from Eastern Africa (43%). Leveraging synergies between high- and low- to middle-income countries (LMICs), well-defined structures, and secure data platforms facilitated collaboration. However, the underrepresentation of collaborators from LMICs was a significant challenge. Available literature provides critical insights into the facilitating factors and challenges of research collaboration with Africa. However, there is a need for a detailed prospective study to explore the themes highlighted further. PROSPERO 2022 CRD42022352115 .

Digital Intervention Services to Promote HIV Self-Testing and Linkage to Care Services: A Bibliometric and Content Analysis-Global Trends and Future Directions.

Objective: The global burden of HIV remains a critical public health challenge, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, home to over two-thirds of individuals living with HIV. HIV self-testing (HIVST) has emerged as a promising strategy endorsed by the World Health Organization to achieve UNAIDS targets. Despite its potential, challenges persist in linking self-testers to care post a positive result. Digital health interventions, including chatbots and mobile applications, offer innovative solutions to address this gap. However, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the collaboration and growth in the literature at the intersection of HIVST and digital interventions is lacking. Methods: The study employs a bibliometric approach, leveraging data from the Web of Science, to analyze the characteristics, citation pattern and content of 289 articles spanning 1992-2023. The analysis involves performance assessment, scientific collaboration analysis, science mapping, and content analysis. Key bibliometric indicators, such as annual growth rate, citation impact, and authorship patterns, are explored. Collaboration patterns among countries, institutions, and authors are elucidated, and thematic mapping provides insight into the key research themes. Results: The analysis reveals a dynamic and expanding field, with an annual scientific growth rate of 12.25%. Notable contributions come from diverse sources, including North America, Europe, and Africa. High-impact journals such as JMIR mHealth and uHealth play a crucial role in disseminating research findings. African authors, including Lebelonyane R, Ford N, and Lockman S, feature prominently, reflecting a positive trend in diverse authorship. Co-citation analysis highlights influential manuscripts, with systematic reviews dominating the top-cited articles. Collaboration analysis underscores strategic partnerships globally, particularly involving the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Conclusion: This bibliometrics analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the digital health landscape in HIVST and linkage to care. It identifies key contributors, high-impact journals, and collaborative networks. The thematic map reveals nuanced research domains, including alcohol dependence, men's health, outcomes, and user acceptance. The findings offer insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, guiding future directions in the evolving intersection of HIVST and digital health interventions.

Picaros and shapeshifters: the postcolonial picaresque style in GauZ’s Standing Heavy

I read GauZ’s Standing Heavy in connection with the postcolonial picaresque style, as GauZ’s Ivorian immigrant characters are robust survivors who see through the French system and criticize it through their anti-idealist viewpoints. This cynical view, often disclosed through roguish language, provides the author the possibility of expressing aggression toward the unfair system and highlighting the characters’ need to find their agency within its unequal structures. Meanwhile, the publisher’s marketing techniques and the author’s media appearances have contributed to the novel’s great success on the literary market; however, I argue that the novel’s success on the market should not diminish our understanding of its cultural criticism. Instead, the author himself may act as a shapeshifter in the competitive cultural marketplace, since his engagement in strategies of self-exotism exposes our sanctimonious need as readers to expect authenticity from African authors in Western contexts when they have to conform to Western codes.

Bleeding Stubs and the Evolution of African Writing: Navigating Standard English and Uncertain Linguistic Futures

Several African novels and short stories have been analysed linguistically. The authors of those analytical articles found that some of the stories employed the linguistic style set by the authors Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa. A major characteristic of this writing style is the use of African English or a blend with standard English. Language evolves regionally, so for this article, standard English refers to any English used by the VOA, BBC, British Royal Family, or even Brits in a pub, including UK and US slang relevant to the novel’s setting. It excludes English spoken by learners. The researcher considers this definition broad and lenient. African English refers to varieties of the English language spoken and written across Africa, often influenced by local languages and cultures, resulting in unique expressions and idiomatic usage. It encompasses different forms, including Nigerian English, Kenyan English and South African English, reflecting the diverse linguistic landscape of the continent. African literary researchers often show a strong interest in novels written in African English because these works reflect the linguistic diversity, cultural identity, and lived experiences of African communities. Nevertheless, many African authors write in Standard English. The academic discussion reveals that the debate on language choice in African literature is ongoing. This paper provides an overview of the English styles used by African authors and highlights the uncertainty regarding the future of African literature due to a lack of credible sources on current trends. The paper then analyses the style of African works in standard English alongside African English. For the purposes of this article, the researcher chooses Donald Besong’s Bleeding Stubs, which has not been analysed previously, to represent standard English works. The selection of Bleeding Stubs is based on its brevity, recent publication, and its setting in Cameroon—a country with limited representation in fiction. The paper concludes that the preferred language style for African authors remains fluid. Finally, it recommends fostering improved reading habits on the continent, encouraging greater engagement with the global reading community. This would lead to better career progression in various fields, create more internationally marketable writers, and enable them to use their incomes to support the development of African languages, reducing the reliance on English for expressing African pride.

Colonial Resistance and Cultural Revival: Insights from African Postcolonial Writings

The impact of colonization on native cultural life, modernization, and anticolonial nationalism led African writers to reflect on colonial encounters and their effects on social, economic, and cultural aspects. They felt tension between traditional and colonial values, seeking to re-discover cultural roots. Through a critical evaluation of the significant works by key African postcolonial writers such as Cyprian Ekwensi, D. O. Fagunwa, J. P. Clark, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and others, this article seeks to explore how these African authors have dealt with the issue of colonial encounter in their writings. The focus is also on highlighting how these African authors have voiced their opposition to colonial legacies and have actively engaged in the resuscitation and celebration of local customs and cultural heritage through their writings in the postcolonial era. This research highlights the significant role that literature has in creating and expressing postcolonial African consciousness by analysing topics such as resistance, identity, tradition, and cultural pride. The study also examines how these literary contributions have actively questioned and dismantled colonial narratives, creating an opportunity for the genuine voices of African nations to emerge and thrive.

Connections between Theory and Practice of Music in Augustine

This article explores two types of connection between theory and practice of music in Augustinian philosophical thought. On a first account, during the early writings of this African author, especially in the dialogue De Musica, there is a disconnection between musical and the practice of music, in the sense that, while the former leads human beings to the spiritual, the latter fosters us to stay in the material realm. In his later writings, for example, in Enarrationes in Psalm, Augustine describes the practice of music through his sign theory, forming the second account of connection. In such description, he points out that the semantic content of the musical signs is done at the same time, being pragmatic. In this way, the rational encounter of what music actually means is transformed into practice: in the convergence of theory and practice of music. Finally, the article was made as a result of the doctoral research in Philosophy in Complutense University of Madrid.

Nigeria Policemen Digital Memes as Reformative Indices

The corrupt activities of some officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) at checkpoints have in recent times drawn the senses of hypermemetic logic. A number of research studies have investigated Nigerian police discourse. However, digital memes deployed to reflect corruption-related activities at police checkpoints have attracted inconsequential research. This paper, therefore, examines selected Nigeria Police digital memes – multi-moulded socially constructed Nigeria police discourse, instantiated digitally to satirise corruptible policing and privilege reformative advocacy in Nigeria. Seven selected police digital memes were collected from Opera News Nigeria, an app that allows African authors and bloggers to create online content and share such with a fast-growing subscriber base. In interpreting the selected digital police memes, this paper engages the theoretical underpinnings of Gunther Kress’ (2010) social-semiotic theory of multimodality. Through its theoretical apparatus, functional loads such as contemptible open extortion, symbolic blind allusions, duty deviance, wrong motif towards checkpoints, detrimental frustration, checkpoints’ main duty negligence and lawlessness were established. Thus, this paper concludes that the satirical philosophy embedded within most Nigeria Police digital memes points towards reformation and reorientation of members of the Nigeria Police Force.

L’Œil du cyclone

This article probes the convergence of meteorological disaster and memory in L’Île et une nuit by Daniel Maximin and La Case du commandeur by Édouard Glissant, reading fragments of these novels through reflections lifted from spiritual autobiographies by M. Jacqui Alexander and Mimerose Beaubrun. While anglophone Black studies scholar Christina Sharpe employs weather systems and climate as figures to apprehend the pervasiveness of antiblackness in today’s world, hurricane disaster takes another form as a device used by francophone Caribbean authors to observe and disrupt the ontological negation of Black people. Tracing the multiple resonances between ‘the wake’ (Sharpe, 2016) as a prismatic theoretical tool and meanings of water, passages, and wakefulness generated by hurricanes in Glissant and Maximin, this article explores the relation between this meteorological disaster event and an expansive consciousness of the human disasters of deportation and rupture. It pays attention to homonymic language tethering the eye of the hurricane and other manifestations of suspended wind and saltwater to the ‘vision’ or modes of sensorial knowing this phenomenon confers, addressing the ways in which African diaspora authors and spiritual practitioners understand the disaster of the Middle Passage through the disaster of the hurricane as temporally amplified, immanent, and beyond human.

RECONSTRUCTING WOMEN IDENTITY IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH

African literature is the mirror of African community in which African social reality is depicted. Gender issue is one of the main themes that are a matter of interest to the majority of African authors. They portrayed woman character in patriarchal African society in which male hegemony is a stereotype. In this sense, Chinua Achebe as well as his fellows did not stray from the rule in their writings. In Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, woman is considered as a second class citizen, and gender inequality is a predominant aspect. However, Achebe’s narratives shifted from covering and ignoring women rule to unveiling and reshaping their own identity in his Anthills of the Savannah. For that reason, the objective of the present paper is to determine how Achebe reconstructs women identity by focusing on the character of Beatrice, the female protagonist in his novel Anthills of the Savannah. By adopting post-colonial and feminist perspectives, the present research work attempts to clarify the recreation of new African women and their empowerment in the post-colonial Africa

The Transformative Potential of Trauma in “Waiting for the Barbarians” by J.M. Coetzee

This article analyses the novel Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) by the South African author J.M. Coetzee from the perspective of the transformative potential of trauma. Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel centred around the conflict between the Empire and the Barbarians, which prompts the active participation of the individual. The trauma in the protagonist’s life becomes the motivator of the dramatic change in his humanist mindset. In my paper, I discuss the manifestations of indirect and direct trauma experience of the protagonist, which transform his attitude towards his personal situation, as well as the situation of “the other.” The resulting perspective is compared to the concepts of posthumanist philosophy outlined by Rosi Braidotti. The article expands the viewpoint on the possibility of reading Coetzee’s novels in the light of posthumanism. Through the analysis of the text, the article creates the interpretative framework linking the author with the fields of trauma theory and posthumanism.

Breaking the Bound of Cocoon -- A Comparative Study on Black Female Identity in Sula and Yearning

In the influential work, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, Bell Hooks scrutinizes prevailing Black feminist discourses, emphasizing the hegemony of white feminists, intersecting forms of oppression, and the consequential loss of subjectivity. Nevertheless, hooks innovative analysis encounters limitations when addressing the complexities within a literary context. This study conducts a comparative analysis of Black female identity construction, exploring the applicability of hooks theoretical framework to Sula, a novel by African American author Toni Morrison. This paper seeks to clarify alleged contradictions and evaluate hooks theory in three key aspects: the common predicament of Black female identity, the process of identity formation, and the relationship between identity and social class divisions. The analysis uncovers the necessity of acknowledging the shortcomings of hooks arguments when applied to Black feminist literature, such as its inattention to the profound inner struggle originating from cultural constraints in authentic experiences of Black females. Due to distinct writing contexts and backgrounds, Bell Hooks and Toni Morrison diverge in their perspectives on Black female identity, necessitating a closer examination to steer Black feminism towards a more radical path in the future.