Benjamens Stan, de Meijer Vincent E, Pol Robert A, Haring Martijn P D
Department of Surgery, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Scientometrics. 2021;126(1):859-862. doi: 10.1007/s11192-020-03730-z. Epub 2020 Oct 10.
The COVID-19 pandemic has vast global consequences. Yet, effective mitigation strategies and economic and medical outfall differ extensively across the globe. It is currently unclear how well researchers from all continents are represented in the unsolicited and solicited publications. A literature review was performed in SCOPUS on COVID-19 oriented publications in the four most impactful medical journals. These included the British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. We identified 809 eligible publications out of identified 924 records. The vast majority of publications on COVID-19, in the four can be considered European (47.7%) or North-American (37.3%) research. Chinese reports were relatively common (8.8%); however, reports from other Asian countries (3.2%) were minimal. Research from the African (1.0%) and South-American continents (0.6%) was rarely published in these journals. These observations are not surprising, as they reflect global academic publishing. However, involving all continents into COVID-19 research is important as COVID-19 management strategies and societal and economic consequences differ extensively across the globe. We see an important role for medical journals in encouraging global voices through solicited articles, to ensure a weighted research and humanitarian response.
新冠疫情在全球产生了巨大影响。然而，有效的缓解策略以及经济和医学后果在全球范围内差异巨大。目前尚不清楚来自各大洲的研究人员在主动和受邀发表的论文中所占比例情况。我们在Scopus数据库中对四大最具影响力医学期刊上以新冠疫情为主题的出版物进行了文献综述。这些期刊包括《英国医学杂志》《美国医学会杂志》《新英格兰医学杂志》和《柳叶刀》。在识别出的924条记录中，我们确定了809篇符合条件的出版物。四大期刊上绝大多数关于新冠疫情的出版物可被视为欧洲（47.7%）或北美（37.3%）的研究。中国的报告相对常见（8.8%）；然而，其他亚洲国家的报告（3.2%）极少。非洲（1.0%）和南美洲（0.6%）大陆的研究在这些期刊上很少发表。这些观察结果并不令人意外，因为它们反映了全球学术出版的情况。然而，让各大洲都参与到新冠疫情研究中很重要，因为新冠疫情的管理策略以及社会和经济后果在全球范围内差异巨大。我们认为医学期刊在通过邀请文章鼓励全球声音方面可发挥重要作用，以确保研究和人道主义应对的平衡。
