Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Apr 2;4(4):e001606.
doi: 10.1161/JAHA.114.001606.

Disparities in cardiovascular research output and citations from 52 African countries: a time-trend, bibliometric analysis (1999-2008)

Gerald S Bloomfield  1 , Abigail Baldridge  2 , Anubha Agarwal  3 , Mark D Huffman  2 , Lisandro D Colantonio  4 , Ehete Bahiru  2 , Vamadevan S Ajay  5 , Poornima Prabhakaran  6 , Grant Lewison  7 , Dorairaj Prabhakaran  5
Affiliations

Disparities in cardiovascular research output and citations from 52 African countries: a time-trend, bibliometric analysis (1999-2008)

Gerald S Bloomfield et al. J Am Heart Assoc. .

Abstract

Background: Cardiovascular research output and citations of publications from Africa have historically been low yet may be increasing. However, data from the continent are limited.

Methods and results: To evaluate the cardiovascular research output and citations from 52 African countries between 1999 and 2008, we created a bibliometric filter to capture cardiovascular research articles published in the Web of Knowledge based on specialist journals and title words. Two coauthors with expertise in cardiovascular medicine tested and refined this filter to achieve >90% precision and recall. We matched retrieved records with their associated citation reports and calculated the running 5-year citation count postpublication, including the year of publication. Publications from Africa were identified by author addresses. South Africa published 872 cardiovascular research papers, Egypt 393, Tunisia 264, and Nigeria 192 between 1999 and 2008. The number of publications increased over the time period for a small number of countries (range 0.1 to 4.8 more publications per year by fractional count). Most countries' citations were low (<50), but citations were greatest for South Africa (7063), Egypt (2557), Tunisia (903), and Nigeria (540). The same countries had the greatest annual increase in 5-year citation index values: 65 (95% CI: 30, 99) for South Africa, 46 (34, 58) for Egypt, 22 (15, 28) for Tunisia, and 8 (2, 14) for Nigeria. The burden of cardiovascular disease had a weak and inconsistent relationship to cardiovascular publications (r(2)=0.07, P=0.05). Greater gross domestic product was associated with more cardiovascular publications in 2008 (r(2)=0.53, P<0.0001).

Conclusions: The increases in cardiovascular research outputs from Africa are concentrated in a few countries. The reasons for regional differences in research outputs require further investigation, particularly relative to competing disease burdens. Higher prioritization of cardiovascular research funding from African countries is warranted.

Keywords: cardiovascular diseases; publications; research; trends.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Trends in fractional cardiovascular publications by World Bank income group (1999–2008). Africa and world income groups' cardiovascular publications were retrieved from Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge according to year. A, The upper panel displays the range of cardiovascular publications per year from zero to 50 000, which best displays the range of cardiovascular publications for high‐income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other upper‐middle‐income countries. B, The lower portion of the graph displays the range of cardiovascular publications from zero to 1000 per year, which displays the range of publications for Africa, other high‐income non‐OECD, other lower‐middle‐income, and other low‐income countries.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Heatmap of the number of cardiovascular publications from Africa by country (1999–2008). Total cardiovascular publications by fractional counts are displayed according to color intensity for 52 countries. The lightest shade represents 0.0 to <0.5 fractional count of cardiovascular publications from a country over the entire time period. Lighter shades successively represent 0.5 to <5.0, 5.0 to <50.0, 50.0 to <500.0, and 500.0 to 872.5 publications. Country abbreviations in alphabetical order are: AO indicates Angola; BF, Burkina Faso; BI, Burundi; BJ, Benin; BW, Botswana; CD, Democratic Republic of the Congo; CF, Central African Republic; CG, Republic of the Congo; CI, Côte D'Ivoire; CM, Cameroon; DJ, Djibouti; DZ, Algeria; EG, Egypt; ER, Eritrea; ET, Ethiopia; GA, Gabon; GH, Ghana; GM, Gambia; GN, Guinea; GQ, Equatorial Guinea; GW, Guinea‐Bissau; KE, Kenya; KM, Comoros; LR, Liberia; LS, Lesotho; LY, Libya; MA, Morocco; MG, Madagascar; ML, Mali; MR, Mauritania; MU, Mauritius; MW, Malawi; MZ, Mozambique; NA, Namibia; NG, Nigeria; RW; Rwanda; SC, Seychelles; SD, Sudan; SL, Sierra Leone; SN, Senegal; SO, Somalia; ST, Sao Tome and Principe; SZ, Swaziland; TD, Chad; TG, Togo; TN, Tunisia; TZ, Tanzania; UG, Uganda; ZA, South Africa; ZM, Zambia; ZW, Zimbabwe. No data were available for Western Sahara.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Cardiovascular publications vs gross domestic product in 2000 and 2008. Fractional cardiovascular publications are shown on a logarithmic scale vs gross domestic product for 2000 (A) and 2008 (B). Only countries with a >5.0 fractional count of cardiovascular publications are displayed. Country abbreviations are as in Figure 2 and are color‐coded according to United Nations Millennium Development regional classifications. The size of the bubble represents population size.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Cardiovascular publications vs cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths and ratio of CVD to HIV deaths in 2000. Cardiovascular deaths, HIV deaths, and fractional cardiovascular publication data from each country have been aggregated to the regional level. Only countries with a >5.0 fractional count cardiovascular publications are displayed. Fractional cardiovascular publications are displayed vs cardiovascular deaths per 1000 persons for each African region (A) and also vs the ratio of cardiovascular deaths to HIV deaths (B). A regression line shows the relationship between fractional cardiovascular publications and indicator of disease burden in both panels.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Lozano R, Naghavi M, Foreman K, Lim S, Shibuya K, Aboyans V, Abraham J, Adair T, Aggarwal R, Ahn SY, Alvarado M, Anderson HR, Anderson LM, Andrews KG, Atkinson C, Baddour LM, Barker‐Collo S, Bartels DH, Bell ML, Benjamin EJ, Bennett D, Bhalla K, Bikbov B, Bin Abdulhak A, Birbeck G, Blyth F, Bolliger I, Boufous S, Bucello C, Burch M, Burney P, Carapetis J, Chen H, Chou D, Chugh SS, Coffeng LE, Colan SD, Colquhoun S, Colson KE, Condon J, Connor MD, Cooper LT, Corriere M, Cortinovis M, de Vaccaro KC, Couser W, Cowie BC, Criqui MH, Cross M, Dabhadkar KC, Dahodwala N, De Leo D, Degenhardt L, Delossantos A, Denenberg J, Des Jarlais DC, Dharmaratne SD, Dorsey ER, Driscoll T, Duber H, Ebel B, Erwin PJ, Espindola P, Ezzati M, Feigin V, Flaxman AD, Forouzanfar MH, Fowkes FG, Franklin R, Fransen M, Freeman MK, Gabriel SE, Gakidou E, Gaspari F, Gillum RF, Gonzalez‐Medina D, Halasa YA, Haring D, Harrison JE, Havmoeller R, Hay RJ, Hoen B, Hotez PJ, Hoy D, Jacobsen KH, James SL, Jasrasaria R, Jayaraman S, Johns N, Karthikeyan G, Kassebaum N, Keren A, Khoo JP, Knowlton LM, Kobusingye O, Koranteng A, Krishnamurthi R, Lipnick M, Lipshultz SE, Ohno SL, Mabweijano J, MacIntyre MF, Mallinger L, March L, Marks GB, Marks R, Matsumori A, Matzopoulos R, Mayosi BM, McAnulty JH, McDermott MM, McGrath J, Mensah GA, Merriman TR, Michaud C, Miller M, Miller TR, Mock C, Mocumbi AO, Mokdad AA, Moran A, Mulholland K, Nair MN, Naldi L, Narayan KM, Nasseri K, Norman P, O'Donnell M, Omer SB, Ortblad K, Osborne R, Ozgediz D, Pahari B, Pandian JD, Rivero AP, Padilla RP, Perez‐Ruiz F, Perico N, Phillips D, Pierce K, Pope CA, III, Porrini E, Pourmalek F, Raju M, Ranganathan D, Rehm JT, Rein DB, Remuzzi G, Rivara FP, Roberts T, De León FR, Rosenfeld LC, Rushton L, Sacco RL, Salomon JA, Sampson U, Sanman E, Schwebel DC, Segui‐Gomez M, Shepard DS, Singh D, Singleton J, Sliwa K, Smith E, Steer A, Taylor JA, Thomas B, Tleyjeh IM, Towbin JA, Truelsen T, Undurraga EA, Venketasubramanian N, Vijayakumar L, Vos T, Wagner GR, Wang M, Wang W, Watt K, Weinstock MA, Weintraub R, Wilkinson JD, Woolf AD, Wulf S, Yeh PH, Yip P, Zabetian A, Zheng ZJ, Lopez AD, Murray CJ, AlMazroa MA, Memish ZA. Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet. 2012; 380:2095-2128. - PMC - PubMed
    1. GBD 2013 Mortality and Causes of Death Collaborators. Global, regional, and national age‐sex specific all‐cause and cause‐specific mortality for 240 causes of death, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet. 2014; 385:117-171. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mensah GA. Ischaemic heart disease in Africa. Heart. 2008; 94:836-843. - PubMed
    1. Gaziano TA, Reddy KS, Paccaud F, Horton S, Chaturvedi V. In: Jamison DT, Breman J, Measham A, Alleyne G, Claeson M, Evans DB, Jha P, Mills A, Musgrove P. (eds.). Cardiovascular disease. Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries. 20062nd edNew York, NY: Oxford University Press and World Bank; 2006. 645-662.
    1. Mayosi BM, Lawn JE, van Niekerk A, Bradshaw D, Abdool Karim SS, Coovadia HMLancet South Africa team. Health in South Africa: changes and challenges since 2009. Lancet. 2012; 380:2029-2043. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources