Bruijns Stevan R, Maesela Mmapeladi, Sinha Suniti, Banner Megan
University of Cape Town, Division of Emergency Medicine, Cape Town, South Africa.
University of Cape Town, Faculty of Health Sciences, Cape Town, South Africa.
West J Emerg Med. 2017 Oct;18(6):1018-1024. doi: 10.5811/westjem.2017.8.34930. Epub 2017 Sep 11.
Based on relative population size and burden of disease, emergency care publication outputs from low- and middle-income regions are disproportionately lower than those of high-income regions. Ironically, outputs from regions with higher publication rates are often less relevant in the African context. As a result, the dissemination of and access to local research is essential to local researchers, but the cost of this access (actual and cost-wise) remains unknown. The aim of this study was to describe access to African emergency care publications in terms of publisher-based access (open access or subscription) and alternate access (self-archived or author provided), as well as the cost of access.
We conducted a retrospective, cross-sectional study using all emergency medicine publications included in Scopus between 2011 and 2015. A sequential search strategy described access to each article, and we calculated mean article charges against the purchasing power parity index (used to describe out-of-pocket expense).
We included 666 publications from 49 journals, of which 395 (59.3%) were open access. For subscription-based articles, 106 (39.1%) were self-archived, 60 (22.1%) were author-provided, and 105 (38.8%) were inaccessible. Mean article access cost was $36.44, and mean processing charge was $2,319.34. Using the purchasing power parity index it was calculated that equivalent out-of-pocket expenditure for South African, Ghanaian and Tanzanian authors would respectively be $15.77, $10.44 and $13.04 for access, and $1,004.02, $664.36 and $830.27 for processing. Based on this, the corrected cost of a single-unit article access or process charge for South African, Ghanaian and Tanzanian authors, respectively, was 2.3, 3.5 and 2.8 times higher than the standard rate.
One in six African emergency care publications are inaccessible outside institutional library subscriptions; additionally, the cost of access to publications in low- and middle-income countries appears prohibitive. Publishers should strongly consider revising pricing for more equitable access for researchers from low- and middle-income countries.
基于相对人口规模和疾病负担，低收入和中等收入地区的急诊护理出版物产出与高收入地区相比严重偏低。具有讽刺意味的是，出版率较高地区的产出在非洲背景下往往相关性较低。因此，本地研究的传播和获取对本地研究人员至关重要，但这种获取的成本（实际成本和成本方面）仍然未知。本研究的目的是从基于出版商的获取方式（开放获取或订阅）和替代获取方式（自我存档或作者提供）以及获取成本方面描述对非洲急诊护理出版物的获取情况。
我们对2011年至2015年Scopus收录的所有急诊医学出版物进行了一项回顾性横断面研究。采用序贯检索策略描述每篇文章的获取情况，并根据购买力平价指数计算平均文章费用（用于描述自付费用）。
我们纳入了来自49种期刊的666篇出版物，其中395篇（59.3%）为开放获取。对于基于订阅的文章，106篇（39.1%）是自我存档的，60篇（22.1%）是作者提供的，105篇（38.8%）无法获取。平均文章获取成本为36.44美元，平均处理费用为2319.34美元。使用购买力平价指数计算得出，南非、加纳和坦桑尼亚作者的等效自付费用分别为获取文章15.77美元、10.44美元和13.04美元，处理文章1004.02美元、664.36美元和830.27美元。据此，南非、加纳和坦桑尼亚作者单篇文章获取或处理费用的校正成本分别比标准费率高2.3倍、3.5倍和2.8倍。
六分之一的非洲急诊护理出版物在机构图书馆订阅之外无法获取；此外，低收入和中等收入国家获取出版物的成本似乎过高。出版商应强烈考虑调整定价，以便低收入和中等收入国家的研究人员能够更公平地获取。
