Waldron Emily, Wakefield Katherine, O'Neill Desmond
Centre for Ageing, Neuroscience and the Humanities, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Centre for Health Science, Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, D24 NR0A, Ireland.
Eur Geriatr Med. 2024 Dec;15(6):1867-1870. doi: 10.1007/s41999-024-01053-3. Epub 2024 Sep 19.
Cultural gerontology - understanding ageing through the lens of arts and humanities-has emerged as an important element of epistemology of ageing. As a boundary area between geriatric medicine/gerontology and arts/humanities disciplines, joint-working/interdisciplinarity is desirable. This project aims to assess the degree of joint-working manifested in cultural gerontology by authorship and acknowledgements in papers dedicated to cultural gerontology in five journals.
Observational survey of authorship in 5 journals from the founding of the specific sections on cultural gerontology or specific dedicated journals, assessing number of authors, disciplinary identities, and evidence of joint working within cultural gerontology.
Of 591 papers, 481 (81%) were single authors. There was a spread of disciplinary affiliations, 247 (41.8%) gerontology/age studies, 169 arts/humanities/social sciences (28.6%) and 133 of uncertain affiliation (22.5%): only 38 papers had a clear indication of joint working across the disciplines (6.4%). In the two geriatric medicine journals, European Geriatric Medicine and Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, authorship was almost exclusively from geriatric medicine/gerontology. There was extremely limited use of acknowledgements.
Our study indicates that single authorship is the most frequent mode of peer-reviewed publishing in cultural gerontology, whilst acknowledging that some authors may have scholarly training in multiple fields but are listed as unidisciplinary. Leaders in the field and editors of relevant journals/section need to consider ways of encouraging and recognising joint working, through fuller descriptions of multiple affiliations, brief author biographies, fuller use of acknowledgements and consideration of brief accompanying discussant responses from complementary disciplines.
文化老年学——通过艺术和人文学科视角理解衰老——已成为衰老认识论的一个重要元素。作为老年医学/老年学与艺术/人文学科之间的一个交叉领域,联合工作/跨学科合作是很有必要的。本项目旨在通过五本期刊中关于文化老年学的论文的作者身份和致谢情况,评估文化老年学中联合工作的体现程度。
对五本期刊中自文化老年学特定板块创立或特定专业期刊创刊以来的作者身份进行观察性调查,评估作者数量、学科身份以及文化老年学内部联合工作的证据。
在591篇论文中,481篇(81%)为独著。学科归属分布广泛,老年学/老年研究领域有247篇(41.8%),艺术/人文/社会科学领域有169篇(28.6%),归属不确定的有133篇(22.5%):只有38篇论文明确显示了跨学科的联合工作(6.4%)。在两本老年医学期刊《欧洲老年医学杂志》和《美国老年医学会杂志》中,作者几乎都来自老年医学/老年学领域。致谢的使用极其有限。
我们的研究表明,独著是文化老年学中同行评议发表最常见的模式,同时也承认有些作者可能在多个领域接受过学术训练,但却被列为单一学科作者。该领域的领导者以及相关期刊/板块的编辑需要考虑通过更全面地描述多重归属、简要的作者简介、更充分地使用致谢以及考虑来自互补学科的简要的随附讨论者回应等方式,鼓励和认可联合工作。