Characterising COVID-19 empirical research production in Latin America and the Caribbean: a scoping review

Abstract

IntroductionThe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID19) pandemic has struck Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) particularly hard. One of the crucial areas in the international community’s response relates to accelerating research and knowledge sharing. The aim of this article is to map and characterise the existing empirical research related to COVID-19 in LAC countries and contribute to identify opportunities for strengthening future research.MethodsIn this scoping review, articles published between December 2019 and 11 November 2020 were selected if they included an empirical component (explicit scientific methods to collect and analyse primary data), LAC population was researched, and the research was about the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of publication status or language. MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, Scielo, CENTRAL and Epistemonikos were searched. All titles and abstracts, and full texts were screened by two independent reviewers. Data from included studies was extracted by one reviewer and checked by a second independent reviewer.Results14,406 records were found. After removing duplicates, 5,458 titles and abstracts were screened, of which 2,323 full texts were revised to finally include 1,626 empirical studies. The largest portion of research came from people/population of Brazil (54.6%), Mexico (19.1%), Colombia (11.2%), Argentina (10.4%), Peru (10.3%) and Chile (10%), while Caribbean countries concentrated 15.3%. The methodologies most used were cross-sectional studies (34.7%), simulation models (17.5%) and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (13.6%). Using a modified version of WHO’s COVID-19 Coordinated Global Research Roadmap classification, 54.2% were epidemiological studies, followed by clinical management (22.3%) and candidate therapeutics (12.2%). Government and public funds support were reported in 19.2% of studies, followed by universities or research centres (9%), but 47.5% did not include any funding statement.ConclusionDuring the first part of the COVID-19 pandemic, LAC countries have contributed to the global research effort primarily with epidemiological studies, with little participation on vaccines research, meaning that this type of knowledge would be imported from elsewhere. Research agendas could be further coordinated aiming to enhance shared self-sufficiency regarding knowledge needs in the region.

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“…A pesar de estos esfuerzos globales para fomentar la colaboración en investigación entre países y regiones, no se sabe si la investigación que se ha realizado en ALC en respuesta a la crisis de COVID-19 da cuenta del impacto que la pandemia está teniendo en la región. Una revisión de la literatura realizada en abril de 2020 encontró que solo el 2,7% del total de publicaciones relacionadas con COVID-19 tenían al menos un autor con afiliación con sede en América Latina, lo que muestra algunas ideas sobre el desarrollo relativamente bajo de la investigación en ALC en ese momento (Mansilla et al, 2022) por lo anterior, nos damos cuenta que existen muy pocas investigaciones en América Latina y por ende en Colombia, debido a esto se realiza este estudio, prediciendo así el comportamiento de las personas si llegase a ocurrir una pandemia en el futuro.…”