Declining high-impact clinical publication rate: A potential contributor to health disparities among persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities
Background: Persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) suffer from stark, well-documented health and healthcare disparities, despite data indicating that the majority see a healthcare provider at least annually. Multiple surveys have indicated that over 90% of physicians feel the...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications
2023-09-01
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| Series: | Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.lww.com/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_226_23 |
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| Summary: | Background:
Persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) suffer from stark, well-documented health and healthcare disparities, despite data indicating that the majority see a healthcare provider at least annually. Multiple surveys have indicated that over 90% of physicians feel they have inadequate knowledge and skill in caring for those with IDD. This has been recognized as a key barrier to health equity.
Objective:
To evaluate the content of high-impact clinical literature for a potential cause of clinician knowledge deficits.
Methods:
We performed a bibliometric analysis of publications within major, high-impact general, and specialty clinical journals from 1946 to 2020 to determine the relative frequency of publications regarding IDD and publication rate.
Results:
We observed a significant decline in articles regarding IDD over the past 20 years within high-impact general medical journals, and a significant decline over the past 15 years within high-impact, specialty society-published journals of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neurology. Furthermore, we observed that high-impact general medical journals devoted a significantly smaller proportion of publication space to articles regarding IDD than they did for conditions with similar prevalence such as HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and drug abuse.
Conclusion:
The declining rate and low frequency of clinical publications regarding IDD within the major, respected clinical literature may be contributing to physicians’ ability to source evidence-based information, thereby impacting perceptions of skill and knowledge deficits, and therefore may be contributing to healthcare disparities in this population. Well-designed clinical studies that engage persons with IDD may lead to an evidence base within the clinical literature that will improve physician confidence and care quality. |
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| ISSN: | 2249-4863 2278-7135 |