Obiora Oluchukwu Loveth, Shead Dorothy Agnes, Olivier Benita
Nelda C. Stark College of Nursing, Texas Woman's University, Houston, Texas, USA.
Wits Cricket Research Hub for Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, Department of Physiotherapy, School of Therapeutic Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Digit Health. 2024 Oct 29;10:20552076241290955. doi: 10.1177/20552076241290955. eCollection 2024 Jan-Dec.
To examine the way African health researchers share data. It summarized the types of data collected, the data sharing platforms, and how the geographical distribution of the African-based health researchers influenced data sharing practices. Ethical, legal, and social aspects were considered. Institutional and government matters such as research support and funding were identified.
PubMed, Web of Science, LILAC, African Journal Archive, and Scopus databases were searched. Full-text screening was conducted, and data was extracted using the data extraction tool published in an a priori Joanna Briggs Institute-published protocol. Discrepancies were resolved by consensus. Data were illustrated using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses flow diagram, figures, tables, and a narrative text.
Of the 3869 studies that were identified, 32 studies were included in the final study. There was a spike in the number of published studies from 2015 to 2019 (=24, 75.0%), while a decline followed in the number of publications from 2020 to April 2023 (=6, 18.8%). Ten of the studies included were from South Africa, five were from Kenya, three each were from Nigeria and Tanzania, two were from Ghana and Sierra Leone respectively, while one each was from Malawi, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Mali, Gambia, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. Negative factors impacting data sharing practices of health researchers in Africa included barriers to individual research capacity, governmental bureaucracy and corruption, legal obstacles, technological problems, prohibitive costs of publication, lack of funding, institutional delays, and ethical issues.
This review identified how African health researchers undertook data sharing in their countries. It pinpointed how geographical location and the resultant challenges to data distribution both individually and institutionally influenced health researchers' ability to achieve data sharing and publication of their research. It was clear that many parts of Africa are still not participating in research due to the many factors that negatively impact health data sharing in Africa.
探讨非洲卫生研究人员共享数据的方式。总结所收集数据的类型、数据共享平台，以及非洲卫生研究人员的地理分布如何影响数据共享实践。研究考虑了伦理、法律和社会方面。确定了机构和政府事务，如研究支持和资金。
检索了PubMed、科学网、LILAC、非洲期刊存档库和Scopus数据库。进行了全文筛选，并使用乔安娜·布里格斯循证卫生保健中心预先发表的方案中公布的数据提取工具提取数据。通过协商解决分歧。数据使用系统评价和Meta分析的首选报告项目流程图、图表和叙述性文本进行说明。
在识别出的3869项研究中，最终纳入32项研究。2015年至2019年发表的研究数量出现激增（=24项，75.0%），而2020年至2023年4月发表的研究数量有所下降（=6项，18.8%）。纳入的研究中有10项来自南非，5项来自肯尼亚，尼日利亚和坦桑尼亚各有3项，加纳和塞拉利昂分别有2项，而马拉维、埃塞俄比亚、喀麦隆、马里、冈比亚、塞内加尔和布基纳法索各有1项。影响非洲卫生研究人员数据共享实践的负面因素包括个人研究能力的障碍、政府官僚作风和腐败、法律障碍、技术问题、高昂的出版成本、资金短缺、机构延误和伦理问题。
本综述确定了非洲卫生研究人员在其国家进行数据共享的方式。它指出了地理位置以及由此产生的个人和机构层面数据传播挑战如何影响卫生研究人员实现数据共享和研究成果发表的能力。显然，由于诸多对非洲卫生数据共享产生负面影响的因素，非洲许多地区仍未参与到研究中来。
