Using scientific authorship criteria as a tool for equitable inclusion in global health research

Sam-Agudu, Nadia A.; Abimbola, Seye

doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007632

Cited by 29 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…There are also an increasing-albeit still small-number of empirical studies examining various aspects of representation within medical education, with recent attention given to gender, sociocultural, and racial equity within academic medicine's leadership, student body, and curricula [17][18][19][20][21]. There is also growing recognition of the preponderance of authors representing English speaking and high-income countries in leading journals in many areas of academia, including health and education [12,[22][23][24][25][26]. Identifying absences in medical education research has been established as an effective way to consider what is included or excluded, and to determine who is heard or silenced [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While it is acknowledged that these first and last authorships positions denote a higher level of credit for the work, Hedt-Gauthier et al [29] found that health research conducted in Africa, or about Africa, was less likely to have first and last authors from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) when the publication included collaborating authors from high-income countries (HICs). While well-established guidelines for defining what constitutes authorship exist and are endorsed by many medical journal editors [24, 38, 39], guidelines for how authorship position should be distributed across authors are underdeveloped. Thatje [40] provided rules of thumb for determining first and last authorship positions within the natural sciences, noting that disciplinary and national culture may play a role in how decisions are made.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Faster, higher, stronger – together? A bibliometric analysis of author distribution in top medical education journals

Whitehead

Cartmill

Rodrigues

et al. 2022

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Background Within medical education research, issues of equity, absence, and marginalization of diverse perspectives are becoming a growing area of scholarly focus. One area of absence that has been under-explored is that of published voices from low- and middle-income countries and non-English speaking scholars. Bibliometric analyses are one way to identify absences. We undertook a bibliometric analysis of five top medical education journals to determine which countries were represented in prestigious first and last authorship positions. Methods Web of Science was searched for all articles and reviews that were published between 2012 and 2018 within Academic Medicine, Medical Education, Advances in Health Sciences Education, Medical Teacher, and BMC Medical Education. Country of origin was identified for the first and last author of each publication, and the number of publications originating from each country were counted. Results Our analysis revealed a dominance of first and last authors from five countries: USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Australia. Authors from these five countries had first or last authored 74% of publications. Of the 195 countries in the world, 53% were not represented by a single publication. Journals varied in their inclusion of authors from outside of these five dominant countries, with BMC Medical Education including more geographic diversity than other journals. There was a slight increase in the percentage of publications from outside of these five countries, from 22% in 2012 to 29% in 2018. Conclusions The dominance of wealthy nations within spaces that claim to be international is a finding that requires attention. As a bibliometric analysis, we were unable to unearth the reasons behind this dominance. However, we draw upon analogies from modern Olympic sport and our own collaborative research process to show how academic publishing continues to be a colonized space that advantages those from wealthy and English-speaking countries.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faster, higher, stronger – together? A bibliometric analysis of author distribution in top medical education journals

Whitehead

Cartmill

Rodrigues

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…We applaud efforts currently underway to develop guidelines encouraging all academic publishers and journals to achieve gender equity in their workforce,61 62 and we concur with researchers calling on journals to actively work for equity and against discrimination in their editorial decisions 63. Journals and consensus groups have also issued guidance aimed at promoting gender equity, geographical equity and diversity in academic publishing 41 64–66…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Gender equity in health research publishing in Africa

et al. 2022

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IntroductionWomen researchers find it more difficult to publish in academic journals than men, an inequity that affects women’s careers and was exacerbated during the pandemic, particularly for women in low-income and middle-income countries. We measured publishing by sub-Saharan African (SSA) women in prestigious authorship positions (first or last author, or single author) during the time frame 2014–2016. We also examined policies and practices at journals publishing high rates of women scientists from sub-Saharan Africa, to identify potential structural enablers affecting these women in publishing.MethodsThe study used Namsor V.2, an application programming interface, to conduct a secondary analysis of a bibliometric database. We also analysed policies and practices of ten journals with the highest number of SSA women publishing in first authorship positions.ResultsBased on regional analyses, the greatest magnitude of authorship inequity is in papers from sub-Saharan Africa, where men comprised 61% of first authors, 65% of last authors and 66% of single authors. Women from South Africa and Nigeria had greater success in publishing than those from other SSA countries, though women represented at least 20% of last authors in 25 SSA countries. The journals that published the most SSA women as prominent authors are journals based in SSA. Journals with overwhelmingly male leadership are also among those publishing the highest number of SSA women.ConclusionWomen scholars in SSA face substantial gender inequities in publishing in prestigious authorship positions in academic journals, though there is a cadre of women research leaders across the region. Journals in SSA are important for local women scholars and the inequities SSA women researchers face are not necessarily attributable to gender discrepancy in journals’ editorial leadership.

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“…8 Such efforts highlight the need for technical sharing in areas that commonly exclude or minimise the contributions of LMIC authors per ICMJE guidelines-particularly in data analysis and manuscript preparation where local authors are often not writing in their native language for publication. 31 However, the impact of these efforts has yet to be determined.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing guidelines which aim to standardise criteria for academic authorship have been established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and reflect the degree of author contributions to research conceptualisation, analysis and study ownership 11. More recent efforts aim to repurpose ICMJE guidelines in a way that promotes equitable authorship, particularly within international collaborations 31 32. This includes placing a critical eye to where authorship guidelines have been unable to capture the value of a collaborators lived expert knowledge, which often plays a key role in the knowledge coproduction for publication, yet these voices are not often named as a coauthor 32.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authorship representation in global emergency medicine: a bibliometric analysis from 2016 to 2020

et al. 2022

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IntroductionHigh-income country (HIC) authors are disproportionately represented in authorship bylines compared with those affiliated with low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in global health research. An assessment of authorship representation in the global emergency medicine (GEM) literature is lacking but may inform equitable academic collaborations in this relatively new field.MethodsWe conducted a bibliometric analysis of original research articles reporting studies conducted in LMICs from the annual GEM Literature Review from 2016 to 2020. Data extracted included study topic, journal, study country(s) and region, country income classification, author order, country(s) of authors’ affiliations and funding sources. We compared the proportion of authors affiliated with each income bracket using Χ2 analysis. We conducted logistic regression to identify factors associated with first or last authorship affiliated with the study country.ResultsThere were 14 113 authors in 1751 articles. Nearly half (45.5%) of the articles reported work conducted in lower middle-income countries (MICs), 23.6% in upper MICs, 22.5% in low-income countries (LICs). Authors affiliated with HICs were most represented (40.7%); 26.4% were affiliated with lower MICs, 17.4% with upper MICs, 10.3% with LICs and 5.1% with mixed affiliations. Among single-country studies, those without any local authors (8.7%) were most common among those conducted in LICs (14.4%). Only 31.0% of first authors and 21.3% of last authors were affiliated with LIC study countries. Studies in upper MICs (adjusted OR (aOR) 3.6, 95% CI 2.46 to 5.26) and those funded by the study country (aOR 2.94, 95% CI 2.05 to 4.20) had greater odds of having a local first author.ConclusionsThere were significant disparities in authorship representation. Authors affiliated with HICs more commonly occupied the most prominent authorship positions. Recognising and addressing power imbalances in international, collaborative emergency medicine (EM) research is warranted. Innovative methods are needed to increase funding opportunities and other support for EM researchers in LMICs, particularly in LICs.

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Using scientific authorship criteria as a tool for equitable inclusion in global health research

Cited by 29 publications

References 17 publications

Faster, higher, stronger – together? A bibliometric analysis of author distribution in top medical education journals

Faster, higher, stronger – together? A bibliometric analysis of author distribution in top medical education journals

Gender equity in health research publishing in Africa

Authorship representation in global emergency medicine: a bibliometric analysis from 2016 to 2020

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