Joint modeling of the association between NIH funding and its three primary outcomes: patents, publications, and citation impact

Scholarly Productivity of US Medical Schools Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

OBJECTIVES

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic profoundly disrupted scientific research but was accompanied by a rapid increase in biomedical research focused on this new disease. We aimed to study how the academic productivity of US medical schools changed during the pandemic and what structural characteristics of medical schools were associated with trends in scholarly publication.

METHODS

Annual totals of publications for each US Doctor of Medicine-granting medical school were extracted for 2019 to 2021 from the Scopus database, and schools were categorized a priori as experiencing a sustained increase in publications, a transient increase in publications, or no increase in publications. Bivariate tests compared school characteristics among these three groups.

RESULTS

Of 139 Doctor of Medicine-granting medical schools, 79% experienced sustained growth in publications from 2019 to 2021, 6% experienced transient growth, and 14% experienced no growth. Sustained growth in publications was associated with being affiliated with a research-intensive university, larger faculty size, the presence of an Emergency Medicine residency, having higher baseline National Institutes of Health funding, and experiencing higher coronavirus disease 2019 infection rates in the local community during the early months of the pandemic. Among predominantly White institutions, a higher diversity of female faculty was associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing transient rather than sustained growth in publications.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrate that scientific output increased during the pandemic at most medical schools, despite significant barriers to research experienced by individual investigators. Further attention is needed to enhance equity in research opportunities, considering diverging trends in productivity between more- and less-advantaged schools, however.

Bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on "sustainable development goals" with emphasis on "good health and well-being" goal (2015-2019)

BACKGROUND

Global progress in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires significant national and international research efforts and collaboration. The current study aimed to provide policymakers, academics, and researchers with a snapshot of global SDGs-related research activity.

METHOD

This was a cross-sectional descriptive bibliometric study. SciVerse Scopus was used to retrieve SDGs-related research publications for the period from 2015 to 2019.

RESULTS

In total, 18,696 documents were found. The Sustainability journal ranked first (n = 1008; 5.4%) in the number of SDGs-related publications. The World Health Organization was the most active institution in publishing SDGs-related documents (n = 581; 1.3%). Most of the retrieved documents belonged to SDG 17 (partnership) followed by SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), while SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) had the least number of publications. The European region (n = 9756; 52.2%) had the highest research contribution while the Eastern Mediterranean region (n = 1052; 5.6%) had the least contribution. After exclusion of SDG 17, the SDG 3 (good health and well-being) was the top researched SDG for the African region, the Eastern Mediterranean regions, and the South-Eastern Asian region. For the region of the Americas, European region, and the Western Pacific region, the SDG 13 (climate action) was the most researched. The SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) was the least researched in the African region, the region of the Americas, the European region, and the South-East Asian region. In the Eastern Mediterranean region, SDG 10 (reduced inequality) was the least researched while in the Western Pacific region, SDG 5 (gender inequality) was the least researched. The most researched targets of SDG 3 were targets 7 (sexual and reproductive health services) and 8 (universal health coverage) while the least researched targets were 5 (substance use disorders) and 9 (death from hazardous materials). International research collaboration within SDG 3 between high- and low-income countries was inadequate.

CONCLUSION

The analysis presented in the current study are useful for researchers, institutes, governments, funding agencies, and policy-makers. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South-East Asia need to increase their funding and research collaboration in the field of SDGs.