ArticleBMC medical ethics2004
Under-representation of developing countries in the research literature: ethical issues arising from a survey of five leading medical journals.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 255 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acute Facility Management of Blast Injuries In Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Prehospital and disaster medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Equity in clinical trials for HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis: A systematic review of global representation and inclusion of patients and researchers.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Pooled it
- Examining non-AIDS mortality among people who inject drugs.AIDS (London, England) · 2014Pooled it
- Fifty years of maternal mortality research in sub-Saharan Africa: a bibliometric analysis of trends, gaps, and opportunities for health equity.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Review
- Country-specific citation disparities in Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology from 2001 to 2024.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Authorship Inequity in Global Health Research Conducted in Low- and Middle-Income Countries and Published in High-Income Country Family Medicine Journals.Annals of family medicine · 2025Article
- Towards opioid access without excess.The Lancet. Public health · 2025Review
- Global Authorship Representation in Otolaryngology Clinical Trials.Laryngoscope investigative otolaryngology · 2025Article
- Towards inclusive authorship: Analyzing author representation in PLOS Global Public Health front matter content.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Open Access Publishing Metrics, Cost, and Impact in Health Professions Education Journals.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Article
- Meta-epidemiological study on the publication rate of South American countries' systematic reviews of interventions registered in PROSPERO.Cochrane evidence synthesis and methods · 2024Article
- Factors influencing research productivity among Syrian medical professionals amidst conflict: a case-control study.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Ten simple rules for successful and sustainable African research collaborations.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- A bibliometric analysis of geographic disparities in the authorship of leading medical journals.Communications medicine · 2023Article
- Underrepresentation of Low- and Middle-Income Nations in Ophthalmology Journals: A Critical Analysis on Diversity, Equity, and Global Representation.Translational vision science & technology · 2023Article
- Poor Representation of Developing Countries in Editorial Boards of Leading Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journals.Asian bioethics review · 2023Article
- Psychosocial Basis of Human Sufferings and Poverty in Patients with Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders.Medical research archives · 2023Article
- Female and low- and middle-income authorship trends in high-impact ENT journals (2011-2020).Laryngoscope investigative otolaryngology · 2023Article
- HIV research output in African Countries between 1986-2020.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIt is widely acknowledged that there is a global divide on health care and health research known as the 10/90 divide.
methodsA retrospective survey of articles published in the BMJ, Lancet, NEJM, Annals of Internal Medicine & JAMA in a calendar year to examine the contribution of the developing world to medical literature. We categorized countries into four regions: UK, USA, Other Euro-American countries (OEAC) and (RoW). OEAC were European countries other than the UK but including Australia, New Zealand and Canada. RoW comprised all other countries.
resultsThe average contribution of the RoW to the research literature in the five journals was 6.5%. In the two British journals 7.6% of the articles were from the RoW; in the three American journals 4.8% of articles were from RoW. The highest proportion of papers from the RoW was in the Lancet (12%). An analysis of the authorship of 151 articles from RoW showed that 104 (68.9%) involved authorship with developed countries in Europe or North America. There were 15 original papers in these journals with data from RoW but without any authors from RoW.
conclusionsThere is a marked under-representation of countries in high-impact general medical journals. The ethical implications of this inequity and ways of reducing it are discussed.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.