Karystianis George, Simpson Paul, Lukmanjaya Wilson, Ginnivan Natasha, Nenadic Goran, Buchan Iain, Butler Tony
School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
JMIR Form Res. 2023 Sep 22;7:e49721. doi: 10.2196/49721.
The emerging field of epidemiological criminology studies the intersection between public health and justice systems. To increase the value of and reduce waste in research activities in this area, it is important to perform transparent research priority setting considering the needs of research beneficiaries and end users along with a systematic assessment of the existing research activities to address gaps and harness opportunities.
In this study, we aimed to examine published research outputs in epidemiological criminology to assess gaps between published outputs and current research priorities identified by prison stakeholders.
A rule-based method was applied to 23,904 PubMed epidemiological criminology abstracts to extract the study determinants and outcomes (ie, "themes"). These were mapped against the research priorities identified by Australian prison stakeholders to assess the differences from research outputs. The income level of the affiliation country of the first authors was also identified to compare the ranking of research priorities in countries categorized by income levels.
On an evaluation set of 100 abstracts, the identification of themes returned an F-score of 90%, indicating reliable performance. More than 53.3% (11,927/22,361) of the articles had at least 1 extracted theme; the most common was substance use (1533/11,814, 12.97%), followed by HIV (1493/11,814, 12.64%). The infectious disease category (2949/11,814, 24.96%) was the most common research priority category, followed by mental health (2840/11,814, 24.04%) and alcohol and other drug use (2433/11,814, 20.59%). A comparison between the extracted themes and the stakeholder priorities showed an alignment for mental health, infectious diseases, and alcohol and other drug use. Although behavior- and juvenile-related themes were common, they did not feature as prison priorities. Most studies were conducted in high-income countries (10,083/11,814, 85.35%), while countries with the lowest income status focused half of their research on infectious diseases (47/91, 52%).
The identification of research themes from PubMed epidemiological criminology research abstracts is possible through the application of a rule-based text mining method. The frequency of the investigated themes may reflect historical developments concerning disease prevalence, treatment advances, and the social understanding of illness and incarcerated populations. The differences between income status groups are likely to be explained by local health priorities and immediate health risks. Notable gaps between stakeholder research priorities and research outputs concerned themes that were more focused on social factors and systems and may reflect publication bias or self-publication selection, highlighting the need for further research on prison health services and the social determinants of health. Different jurisdictions, countries, and regions should undertake similar systematic and transparent research priority-setting processes.
新兴的流行病学犯罪学领域研究公共卫生与司法系统的交叉点。为了提高该领域研究活动的价值并减少浪费，在考虑研究受益者和最终用户需求的同时，进行透明的研究优先级设定，并对现有研究活动进行系统评估以弥补差距并把握机遇，这一点很重要。
在本研究中，我们旨在检查流行病学犯罪学领域已发表的研究成果，以评估已发表成果与监狱利益相关者确定的当前研究优先级之间的差距。
应用基于规则的方法对23904篇PubMed流行病学犯罪学摘要进行分析，以提取研究决定因素和结果（即“主题”）。将这些与澳大利亚监狱利益相关者确定的研究优先级进行比对，以评估与研究成果的差异。还确定了第一作者所属国家的收入水平，以比较不同收入水平国家的研究优先级排名。
在100篇摘要的评估集中，主题识别的F分数为90%，表明性能可靠。超过53.3%（11927/22361）的文章至少有1个提取的主题；最常见的是物质使用（1533/11814，12.97%），其次是艾滋病毒（1493/11814，12.64%）。传染病类别（2949/11814，24.96%）是最常见的研究优先级类别，其次是心理健康（2840/11814，24.04%）以及酒精和其他药物使用（2433/11814，20.59%）。提取的主题与利益相关者优先级之间的比较显示，在心理健康、传染病以及酒精和其他药物使用方面存在一致性。虽然与行为和青少年相关的主题很常见，但它们并非监狱的优先事项。大多数研究在高收入国家进行（10083/11814，85.35%），而收入最低的国家将其一半的研究集中在传染病上（47/91，52%）。
通过应用基于规则的文本挖掘方法，可以从PubMed流行病学犯罪学研究摘要中识别研究主题。所研究主题的频率可能反映了有关疾病流行、治疗进展以及对疾病和被监禁人群的社会理解的历史发展。收入状况群体之间的差异可能由当地卫生优先事项和直接健康风险来解释。利益相关者研究优先级与研究成果之间的显著差距涉及更关注社会因素和系统的主题，这可能反映了发表偏倚或自我发表选择，凸显了对监狱卫生服务和健康的社会决定因素进行进一步研究的必要性。不同的司法管辖区、国家和地区应开展类似的系统且透明的研究优先级设定过程。
