Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016
Background Collaborations are often a cornerstone of global health research. Power dynamics can shape if and how local researchers are included in manuscripts. This article investigates how international collaborations affect the representation of local authors, overall and in first and last author...
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| Format: | Article |
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BMJ Publishing Group
2019-10-01
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| Series: | BMJ Global Health |
| Online Access: | https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/5/e001853.full |
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| author | Atalay Alem Jimmy Volmink Bethany L Hedt-Gauthier Herve Momo Jeufack Nicholas H Neufeld Sara Sauer Jackline Odhiambo Yap Boum Miriam Shuchman |
| author_facet | Atalay Alem Jimmy Volmink Bethany L Hedt-Gauthier Herve Momo Jeufack Nicholas H Neufeld Sara Sauer Jackline Odhiambo Yap Boum Miriam Shuchman |
| author_sort | Atalay Alem |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background Collaborations are often a cornerstone of global health research. Power dynamics can shape if and how local researchers are included in manuscripts. This article investigates how international collaborations affect the representation of local authors, overall and in first and last author positions, in African health research.Methods We extracted papers on ‘health’ in sub-Saharan Africa indexed in PubMed and published between 2014 and 2016. The author’s affiliation was used to classify the individual as from the country of the paper’s focus, from another African country, from Europe, from the USA/Canada or from another locale. Authors classified as from the USA/Canada were further subclassified if the author was from a top US university. In primary analyses, individuals with multiple affiliations were presumed to be from a high-income country if they contained any affiliation from a high-income country. In sensitivity analyses, these individuals were presumed to be from an African country if they contained any affiliation an African country. Differences in paper characteristics and representation of local coauthors are compared by collaborative type using χ² tests.Results Of the 7100 articles identified, 68.3% included collaborators from the USA, Canada, Europe and/or another African country. 54.0% of all 43 429 authors and 52.9% of 7100 first authors were from the country of the paper’s focus. Representation dropped if any collaborators were from USA, Canada or Europe with the lowest representation for collaborators from top US universities—for these papers, 41.3% of all authors and 23.0% of first authors were from country of paper’s focus. Local representation was highest with collaborators from another African country. 13.5% of all papers had no local coauthors.Discussion Individuals, institutions and funders from high-income countries should challenge persistent power differentials in global health research. South-South collaborations can help African researchers expand technical expertise while maintaining presence on the resulting research. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-614536354ccb4d51a6a28d0a97bafa1a |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2059-7908 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2019-10-01 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMJ Global Health |
| spelling | doaj-art-614536354ccb4d51a6a28d0a97bafa1a2024-12-14T10:55:09ZengBMJ Publishing GroupBMJ Global Health2059-79082019-10-014510.1136/bmjgh-2019-001853Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016Atalay Alem0Jimmy Volmink1Bethany L Hedt-Gauthier2Herve Momo Jeufack3Nicholas H Neufeld4Sara Sauer5Jackline Odhiambo6Yap Boum7Miriam Shuchman8Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Oromia, Ethiopia7 Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Cape Town, South Africa2 Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USAAccenture Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaDepartment of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA6 School of Public Health and Community Development, Maseno University, Kisumu, Kenyapublic health expert,4 Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaBackground Collaborations are often a cornerstone of global health research. Power dynamics can shape if and how local researchers are included in manuscripts. This article investigates how international collaborations affect the representation of local authors, overall and in first and last author positions, in African health research.Methods We extracted papers on ‘health’ in sub-Saharan Africa indexed in PubMed and published between 2014 and 2016. The author’s affiliation was used to classify the individual as from the country of the paper’s focus, from another African country, from Europe, from the USA/Canada or from another locale. Authors classified as from the USA/Canada were further subclassified if the author was from a top US university. In primary analyses, individuals with multiple affiliations were presumed to be from a high-income country if they contained any affiliation from a high-income country. In sensitivity analyses, these individuals were presumed to be from an African country if they contained any affiliation an African country. Differences in paper characteristics and representation of local coauthors are compared by collaborative type using χ² tests.Results Of the 7100 articles identified, 68.3% included collaborators from the USA, Canada, Europe and/or another African country. 54.0% of all 43 429 authors and 52.9% of 7100 first authors were from the country of the paper’s focus. Representation dropped if any collaborators were from USA, Canada or Europe with the lowest representation for collaborators from top US universities—for these papers, 41.3% of all authors and 23.0% of first authors were from country of paper’s focus. Local representation was highest with collaborators from another African country. 13.5% of all papers had no local coauthors.Discussion Individuals, institutions and funders from high-income countries should challenge persistent power differentials in global health research. South-South collaborations can help African researchers expand technical expertise while maintaining presence on the resulting research.https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/5/e001853.full |
| spellingShingle | Atalay Alem Jimmy Volmink Bethany L Hedt-Gauthier Herve Momo Jeufack Nicholas H Neufeld Sara Sauer Jackline Odhiambo Yap Boum Miriam Shuchman Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016 BMJ Global Health |
| title | Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016 |
| title_full | Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016 |
| title_fullStr | Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016 |
| title_short | Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016 |
| title_sort | stuck in the middle a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in africa 2014 2016 |
| url | https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/5/e001853.full |
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