Geography of Africa biomedical publications: an analysis of 1996-2005 PubMed papers

Abstract

Background: Scientific publications play an important role in scientific process providing a key linkage between knowledge production and use. Scientific publishing activity worldwide over the past decades shows that most countries in Africa have low levels of publication. We sought to examine trends and contribution of different Africa subregions and individual countries as represented by the articles indexed by PubMed between 1996 and 2005.

Results: Research production in Africa is highly skewed; South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria make up a striking 60% of the total number of articles indexed by PubMed between 1996 and 2005. When adjusted for population size smaller countries, such as The Gambia, Gabon and Botswana, were more productive than Nigeria and Kenya. The Gambia and Eritrea had better records when total production was adjusted for gross domestic product. The contribution of Africa to global research production was persistently low through the period studied.

Conclusion: In this study, we found that most populous and rich countries (such as South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria) have correspondingly higher research production; but smaller countries can be productive. We noted continuous increases and reassuring trends in the production of research articles from all African subregions during the period 1996 - 2005. However, contribution of Africa to global research production was limited.

Figure 1

Color-coded map representing number of PubMed publications per year (1996 – 2005).

Figure 2

Scatter plot depicting the association between total PubMed publications for different countries in Africa and the population of each country

Figure 3

Top 20 countries and their number of PubMed publications per 1,000,000 populations per year during the period between 1996 and 2005. Horizontal lines in the box represent the 1st, 2nd (the median), and 3rd quartile; whiskers (vertical lines) represent extension of values up and down.

Figure 4

Scatter plot depicting the association between total PubMed publications for different countries in Africa and the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country in billions of 2005 US dollars.

Figure 5

Top 20 countries and their number of PubMed publications per one billion US dollars GDP per year during the period between 1996 and 2005. Horizontal lines in the box represent the 1st, 2nd (the median), and 3rd quartile; whiskers (vertical lines) represent extension of values up and down.

Figure 6

Trends in Africa subregional biomedical articles output indexed by PubMed (1996 – 2005)