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Developing countries are markedly under-represented in high-impact general medical journals, contributing only 6.5% of research articles, with the majority of these publications relying on co-authorship with developed nations. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.SUPPORTS_CONSENSUS.

October 4, 2004Open Access

Under-representation of developing countries in the research literature: ethical issues arising from a survey of five leading medical journals

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Abstract

Abstract Background It is widely acknowledged that there is a global divide on health care and health research known as the 10/90 divide. Methods A retrospective survey of articles published in the BMJ, Lancet, NEJM, Annals of Internal Medicine 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. Conclusions There 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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