ArticlePloS one2014
Attention to local health burden and the global disparity of health research.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 196 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Measuring scientific coherence between global neglected tropical disease research and population health indicators: a 25-year meta-research study.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2026Article
- First Comprehensive Global Bibliometric Analysis of Monkeypox Virus Research Landscape From 1976 to 2025.The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale · 2026Article
- Global distribution of research efforts, disease burden, and impact of US public funding withdrawal.Nature medicine · 2025Article
- Geographical diversity of peer reviewers shapes author success.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The Role of Big Data in Developing Innovative Predictive Learning Models for Neglected Tropical Diseases within the New Generation of the Evidence-Based Medicine Pyramid.Le infezioni in medicina · 2025Review
- HIV-associated depression: a translational framework targeting neuroimmune inflammation and psychosocial stress modulation.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- From voice to ink (Vink): development and assessment of an automated, free-of-charge transcription tool.BMC research notes · 2024Article
- Manual versus machine: How accurately does the Medical Text Indexer (MTI) classify different document types into disease areas?PloS one · 2024Article
- Socially responsible science: Exploring the complexities.European journal for philosophy of science · 2023Article
- Diabetes mellitus research in Saudi Arabia: A bibliometric study (2010-2021).Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2023Review
- COVID-19 burden, author affiliation and women's well-being: A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 related publications including focus on low- and middle-income countries.EClinicalMedicine · 2022Article
- The latent structure of global scientific development.Nature human behaviour · 2022Article
- Neuroinflammation in HIV-associated depression: evidence and future perspectives.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Review
- How does academia respond to the burden of infectious and parasitic disease?Health research policy and systems · 2022Article
- Exploring static and dynamic relationships between burden of disease and research funding in the United States.Health research policy and systems · 2022Article
- The economic challenges of new drug development.Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society · 2022Article
- Article
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
Most studies on global health inequality consider unequal health care and socio-economic conditions but neglect inequality in the production of health knowledge relevant to addressing disease burden. We demonstrate this inequality and identify likely causes. Using disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 111 prominent medical conditions, assessed globally and nationally by the World Health Organization, we linked DALYs with MEDLINE articles for each condition to assess the influence of DALY-based global disease burden, compared to the global market for treatment, on the production of relevant MEDLINE articles, systematic reviews, clinical trials and research using animal models vs. humans. We then explored how DALYs, wealth, and the production of research within countries correlate with this global pattern. We show that global DALYs for each condition had a small, significant negative relationship with the production of each type of MEDLINE articles for that condition. Local processes of health research appear to be behind this. Clinical trials and animal studies but not systematic reviews produced within countries were strongly guided by local DALYs. More and less developed countries had very different disease profiles and rich countries publish much more than poor countries. Accordingly, conditions common to developed countries garnered more clinical research than those common to less developed countries. Many of the health needs in less developed countries do not attract attention among developed country researchers who produce the vast majority of global health knowledge--including clinical trials--in response to their own local needs. This raises concern about the amount of knowledge relevant to poor populations deficient in their own research infrastructure. We recommend measures to address this critical dimension of global health inequality.
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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.