Sub-Saharan Africa's Biomedical Journal Coverage in Scholarly Databases: A comparison of Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE, PubMed, African Index Medicus and AfricanJournals Online

Asubiaro, Toluwase Victor

doi:10.31124/advance.17082719.v1

Cited by 4 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…At the African‐regional level, Asubiaro (2022a) is the only article that compared the journals from Africa in two or more research indexing databases. Asubiaro (2022a) focused on Sub‐Saharan African countries' journals in Web of Science and Scopus, though with a focus on biomedical journals. Asubiaro (2022a) found that less than 10% of journals from Sub‐Saharan Africa were indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Asubiaro (2022a) focused on Sub‐Saharan African countries' journals in Web of Science and Scopus, though with a focus on biomedical journals. Asubiaro (2022a) found that less than 10% of journals from Sub‐Saharan Africa were indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus. Other relevant studies were outdated and only included an ordinary count of journals in the Journal Citation Report (JCR) of the Web of Science without comparison to other research indexing databases.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study is a follow‐up to Asubiaro (2022a) that focused on the coverage of Sub‐Saharan African biomedical journals in Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE, EMBASE, African Journals Online (AJOL), and African Index Medicus (AIM). Asubiaro (2022a) revealed that less than 10% of all biomedical journals from Sub‐Saharan Africa are indexed in international research databases. The scope of this study is to investigate the coverage of all the journals from the continent of Africa in the two oldest and most authoritative research indexing databases (Web of Science and Scopus).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A comparative study of the coverage of African journals in Web of Science, Scopus, and CrossRef

Asubiaro

Onaolapo²

2023

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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This is the first study that evaluated the coverage of journals from Africa in Web of Science, Scopus, and CrossRef. A list of active journals published in each of the 55 African countries was compiled from Ulrich's periodicals directory and African Journals Online (AJOL) website. Journal master lists for Web of Science, Scopus, and CrossRef were searched for the African journals. A total of 2,229 unique active African journals were identified from Ulrich (N = 2,117, 95.0%) and AJOL (N = 243, 10.9%) after removing duplicates. The volume of African journals in Web of Science and Scopus databases is 7.4% (N = 166) and 7.8% (N = 174), respectively, compared to the 45.6% (N = 1,017) covered in CrossRef. While making up only 17.% of all the African journals, South African journals had the best coverage in the two most authoritative databases, accounting for 73.5% and 62.1% of all the African journals in Web of Science and Scopus, respectively. In contrast, Nigeria published 44.5% of all the African journals. The distribution of the African journals is biased in favor of Medical, Life and Health Sciences and Humanities and the Arts in the three databases. The low representation of African journals in CrossRef, a free indexing infrastructure that could be harnessed for building an African-centric research indexing database, is concerning. | INTRODUCTIONResearch indexing databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Dimensions, CrossRef, and Open Alex are searchable electronic collections of scholarly communications metadata. The research indexing databases are integral to the development of scholarly communication as they foster the evaluation, preservation, and dissemination of research findings. The research indexing databases can be categorized into two based on their policy on the assessment of information sources they index. The first category of research indexing databases curates all the sources that are available to them without any mechanism of assessment; examples include Google Scholar, Open Alex, and CrossRef. The second category of research indexing databases, such as Web of Science, MEDLINE, Scopus, and EMBASE have mechanisms for assessing sources before they are curated and are, therefore, usually more trusted and authoritative. The first category of research indexing databases are usually more exhaustive because they index more sources (

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A comparative study of the coverage of African journals in Web of Science, Scopus, and CrossRef

Asubiaro

Onaolapo²

2023

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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“…However, studies in gray literature that were not peer reviewed would have not have been eligible for inclusion in this review. Despite using rigorousAU : Pleasenotethatthespellingofthewor search strategies without language restrictions, studies published in journals not indexed in MEDLINE and EMBASE were not captured [259][260][261][262][263]. Given the focus on this review and the heterogeneity in aims and methodologies of included studies, risk of bias assessment to understand how effect size may have been compromised by bias is not applicable.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementation research on noncommunicable disease prevention and control interventions in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review

Hategeka

Adu

Desloge³

et al. 2022

PLoS Med

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Background While the evidence for the clinical effectiveness of most noncommunicable disease (NCD) prevention and treatment interventions is well established, care delivery models and means of scaling these up in a variety of resource-constrained health systems are not. The objective of this review was to synthesize evidence on the current state of implementation research on priority NCD prevention and control interventions provided by health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods and findings On January 20, 2021, we searched MEDLINE and EMBASE databases from 1990 through 2020 to identify implementation research studies that focused on the World Health Organization (WHO) priority NCD prevention and control interventions targeting cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease and provided within health systems in LMICs. Any empirical and peer-reviewed studies that focused on these interventions and reported implementation outcomes were eligible for inclusion. Given the focus on this review and the heterogeneity in aims and methodologies of included studies, risk of bias assessment to understand how effect size may have been compromised by bias is not applicable. We instead commented on the distribution of research designs and discussed about stronger/weaker designs. We synthesized extracted data using descriptive statistics and following the review protocol registered in PROSPERO (CRD42021252969). Of 9,683 potential studies and 7,419 unique records screened for inclusion, 222 eligible studies evaluated 265 priority NCD prevention and control interventions implemented in 62 countries (6% in low-income countries and 90% in middle-income countries). The number of studies published has been increasing over time. Nearly 40% of all the studies were on cervical cancer. With regards to intervention type, screening accounted for 49%, treatment for 39%, while prevention for 12% (with 80% of the latter focusing on prevention of the NCD behavior risk factors). Feasibility (38%) was the most studied implementation outcome followed by adoption (23%); few studies addressed sustainability. The implementation strategies were not specified well enough. Most studies used quantitative methods (86%). The weakest study design, preexperimental, and the strongest study design, experimental, were respectively employed in 25% and 24% of included studies. Approximately 72% of studies reported funding, with international funding being the predominant source. The majority of studies were proof of concept or pilot (88%) and targeted the micro level of health system (79%). Less than 5% of studies report using implementation research framework. Conclusions Despite growth in implementation research on NCDs in LMICs, we found major gaps in the science. Future studies should prioritize implementation at scale, target higher levels health systems (meso and macro levels), and test sustainability of NCD programs. They should employ designs with stronger internal validity, be more conceptually driven, and use mixed methods to understand mechanisms. To maximize impact of the research under limited resources, adding implementation science outcomes to effectiveness research and regional collaborations are promising.

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The State of Surgical Research in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Urgent Call for Surgical Research Trainers

Nthumba,

Odhiambo,

Pusic

et al. 2024

Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery - Global Open

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Background: Surgery in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is poorly developed because of years of neglect. Sustained research on global surgery led to its recognition as an indivisible and indispensable part of primary healthcare in 2015. However, this has had little visible effect on surgical ecosystems within LMICs, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). SSA surgical research systems strengthening, which includes skills transfer, with local priority setting driving the research agenda, is needed to propel global surgery into the future. Methods: The authors performed a literature review of the state of surgical research within SSA and also report the initial efforts of two research training nonprofits to empower young African surgeons with research skills. Results: Surgical research in SSA is disadvantaged even before it is birthed, facing monumental challenges at every stage of development, from research agenda determination to funding, study execution, and publication. Compared with a global output of 17.49 publications per 100,000 population, SSA produces 0.9 (P < 0.0001). The Surgeons in Humanitarian Alliance for Reconstructive, Research, and Education and Enabling Africa Clinical Health Research programs are involved in the longitudinal research mentorship of surgical residents within SSA; the improved quality of research and successful publications by participants suggest nascent steps in growing young surgical scientists. Conclusions: In the absence of an existing surgical research infrastructure within LMICs, global surgery research trainers should link up and collaborate to help develop a surgical research community that will provide the local data required to help transform the SSA surgical ecosystem.

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Sub-Saharan Africa's Biomedical Journal Coverage in Scholarly Databases: A comparison of Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE, PubMed, African Index Medicus and AfricanJournals Online

Abstract: <p>Data is freely available online doi: 10.17632/52pncd8zmy.1</p>

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

A comparative study of the coverage of African journals in Web of Science, Scopus, and CrossRef

A comparative study of the coverage of African journals in Web of Science, Scopus, and CrossRef

Implementation research on noncommunicable disease prevention and control interventions in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review

The State of Surgical Research in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Urgent Call for Surgical Research Trainers

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