IJCA-18073; No of Pages 3 International Journal of Cardiology xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Cardiology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijcard
Letter to the Editor
From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters Lauge Østergaard a,⁎, Philip L. Fosbøl b, Robert A. Harrington c, Zubin J. Eapen d, Eric D. Peterson d, Emil L. Fosbøl a a
Heart Center, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Danish Technical University, Denmark c Stanford University, CA, USA d Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University, North Carolina, USA b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 April 2014 Accepted 13 April 2014 Available online xxxx Keywords: Science Bibliometrics Congresses Cardiology Peer review Publication
Medical conferences are key in the sharing of new scientific findings. However, results reported as conference-abstracts are generally not considered final before publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It is known that approximately 1/3 of the scientific results presented as abstracts at large medical conferences are published within 2 years of presentation [1,2]. Cardiovascular research has increased substantially in the last decade, and low- and middle-income countries have now a greater share of citations than before [3]. Less is known about the relative difference between countries in regard to likelihood of publication and a comparison of abstract-to-publication conversion rate between countries is of interest [4]. By identifying and quantifying country differences, the scientific community could identify barriers for publication and publication bias. We used an automated and validated computer algorithm [1,2] for searching the published medical literature and determining how many abstracts presented at the three major international cardiovascular conferences (the American Heart Association [AHA], American College of Cardiology [ACC], and European Society of Cardiology [ESC] annual scientific sessions from 2006 to 2008)
Abbreviations: AHA, American Heart Association; ACC, American College of Cardiology; ESC, European Society of Cardiology; GDP, gross domestic product. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Tagensvej 113b, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark. Tel.: + 45 41132400. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Østergaard).
were published as peer-reviewed papers within 2 years of their initial meeting presentation. We focused on the influence of the country of origin and the conversion of the abstracts into publications. We included 27,208 abstracts in our study from the Scientific Sessions of AHA, ACC, and ESC 2006–2008 (Table 1). We found that the USA was the country with the greatest scientific contribution with 38.1% of the abstracts presented. Germany was the country with the second most abstracts presented with 11.4% followed by Japan, Italy, and the UK, with 10.6%, 7.4%, and 6.8%, respectively (Fig. 1). Within two years of presentation, 30.6% of the abstracts were published. We further compared the countries' conversion rates from abstract to peer-reviewed publication with USA as a referent using multivariable adjusted logistic regression analysis. We found that Taiwan, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) were associated with the highest conversion rates compared with the US (all P b 0.05). Russia, Egypt, Portugal, and Slovenia were associated with the lowest conversion rates compared with the US (P b 0.001) (Fig. 2). New Zealand was the country with the highest percentage of published articles in a high-impact journal with 41.2% (Fig. 3). New Zealand was followed by Belgium, the UK, Canada and Sweden with 36.0%, 35.9%, 34.3%, and 33.9% respectively. The Republic of Korea, Brazil, Taiwan, Turkey and Singapore were the countries with the lowest percentage of articles published in a high-impact journal with 9.8%, 8.7%, 5.5%, 1.7%, and 0% respectively. In multivariable analyses, no country was associated with higher odds of publication relative to the US. The following countries were conversely associated with a lower likelihood of conversion from abstract to a high-impact publication compared with the US: the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Brazil, Greece, Spain, India, Poland, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey. Hence, Taiwan was associated with the highest odds of publication but one of the lowest rates of conversion to high-impact publications. Several studies have discussed how country of origin influences publication of medical research. Prabhakaran and colleagues found that high-income-countries (classified by the World Bank's gross national product estimates of 2004) were responsible for the majority (82.4%) of the articles published in the field of cardiovascular research. Prabhakaran et al. [5] found that national health expenditures also correlate with cardiovascular disease publications. Countries with health expenditures of more than 6.7% of their gross domestic product (GDP) published significantly more articles. A study by Winnik et al. [4] supports this finding. Winnik and colleagues examined the 10,020
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172 0167-5273/© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Østergaard L, et al, From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters, Int J Cardiol (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172
2
L. Østergaard et al. / International Journal of Cardiology xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Table 1 Characteristics of abstracts. Characteristic
Total
N Year, N (%) 2006 2007 2008 Major scientific category, % Basic science Clinical science Population science Origin of research (first author affiliation), % Americas Europe Africa Asia/Oceania Median number of authors on abstract (IQR) Abstract with N1 participating country, %
27208 9555 (35.1) 8843 (32.5) 8810 (32.4) 22.8 63.1 14.1 38.2 44.8 0.2 16.8 7 (5–9) 16.7
abstracts submitted at the ESC conference 2006. They found that for every 10,000 USD increase in per-capita GDP there was a 49% increased chance of publishing the presented abstract as a peer-reviewed article. In another study by Winnik et al. [6] it was found that 38% of the 10,020 abstracts presented at the 2006 ESC conference were published as peer-reviewed articles. To that end, Winnik et al. studied the origin of the abstracts presented at the conference; the majority of the presented abstracts came from Europe (57.5%) and followed by the American continent (33,7%). All five continents were represented at the conference. Along with the results of our study this suggests that the countries from Europe (mainly Western Europe) and the countries from the American continent are the major contributors to the AHA, ACC and ESC Scientific Sessions. A linguistic factor has been suggested by Coates et al. [7] to influence the publication process of cardiovascular research. They found that carelessly written articles were more likely to be rejected. Together with other studies, our results underline the need for efforts in order to limit the differences between countries in terms of research-conversion. First, the linguistic barriers could be broken with the help from author's editors; however, this requires funding. Second, countries' clinical societies could also help individual researchers by teaching language skills and academic writing. Clinical societies
Fig. 2. Odds ratios and confidence intervals of abstract-to-publication conversion relative to USA.
could even reward research projects that successfully produce peer-reviewed publications. Third, an increased international co-operation in the scientific community is of interest to break the linguistic barriers and to increase knowledge exchange. Mentor–mentee programs across countries could potentially help translate preliminary results into publications. This study used an automated computer algorithm to assess the conversion of abstracts to publications. This algorithm has previously been validated but could potentially underestimate conversion rates.
Fig. 1. The 30 most well-represented countries at the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology Scientific Sessions 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Please cite this article as: Østergaard L, et al, From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters, Int J Cardiol (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172
L. Østergaard et al. / International Journal of Cardiology xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
3
Fig. 3. % of publication with impact factor N10 per country.
We were only able to compare conversion of presented abstracts from these conferences and were therefore unable to compare those abstracts that were not accepted for presentation. Our study is based on the specialty of cardiovascular medicine, and broader studies are needed to understand which countries contribute to biomedical research writ large. We conclude that the conversion of abstracts to peer-reviewed publications in cardiovascular research is relatively low and varies widely among countries. In general, western countries were associated with a higher conversion rate and also with high-impact publications. National initiatives should be deployed in order to break down barriers to publication.
ZJ Eapen: Dr. Eapen contributed to the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. ED Peterson: Dr. Peterson contributed to the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. EL Fosbøl: Dr. Fosbøl had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Dr. Fosbøl contributed to the conception and design of the study, the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript.
Author contributions
References
L Østergaard: Dr. Østergaard had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Dr. Østergaard contributed to the conception and design of the study, the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. PL Fosbøl: Dr. Fosbøl had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Dr. Fosbøl contributed to the conception and design of the study, the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. RA Harrington: Dr. Harrington contributed to the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript.
[1] Abuzeid W, Fosbøl EL, Fosbøl PL, et al. Rate and predictors of the conversion of abstracts presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress scientific meetings to full peer-reviewed publications. Can J Cardiol November 2013;29(11):1520–3. [2] Fosbøl EL, Fosbøl PL, Harrington RA, Eapen ZJ, Peterson ED. Conversion of cardiovascular conference abstracts to publications. Circulation December 2012;126(24):2819–25. [3] Huffman MD, Baldridge A, Bloomfield GS, et al. Global cardiovascular research output, citations, and collaborations: a time-trend, bibliometric analysis (1999–2008). PLoS ONE 2013;8(12):e83440. [4] Winnik S, Speer T, Raptis DA, et al. The wealth of nations and the dissemination of cardiovascular research. Int J Cardiol November 2013;169(3):190–5 [5]. [5] Prabhakaran P, Ajay VS, Prabhakaran D, et al. Global cardiovascular disease research survey. J Am Coll Cardiol December 2007;50(24):2322–8 [11]. [6] Winnik S, Raptis DA, Walker JH, et al. From abstract to impact in cardiovascular research: factors predicting publication and citation. Eur Heart J December 2012;33(24):3034–45. [7] Coates R, Sturgeon B, Bohannan J, Pasini E. Language and publication in “Cardiovascular Research” articles. Cardiovasc Res Februar 2002;53(2):279–85 [1].
Please cite this article as: Østergaard L, et al, From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters, Int J Cardiol (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Cardiology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijcard
Letter to the Editor
From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters Lauge Østergaard a,⁎, Philip L. Fosbøl b, Robert A. Harrington c, Zubin J. Eapen d, Eric D. Peterson d, Emil L. Fosbøl a a
Heart Center, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Danish Technical University, Denmark c Stanford University, CA, USA d Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University, North Carolina, USA b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 April 2014 Accepted 13 April 2014 Available online xxxx Keywords: Science Bibliometrics Congresses Cardiology Peer review Publication
Medical conferences are key in the sharing of new scientific findings. However, results reported as conference-abstracts are generally not considered final before publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It is known that approximately 1/3 of the scientific results presented as abstracts at large medical conferences are published within 2 years of presentation [1,2]. Cardiovascular research has increased substantially in the last decade, and low- and middle-income countries have now a greater share of citations than before [3]. Less is known about the relative difference between countries in regard to likelihood of publication and a comparison of abstract-to-publication conversion rate between countries is of interest [4]. By identifying and quantifying country differences, the scientific community could identify barriers for publication and publication bias. We used an automated and validated computer algorithm [1,2] for searching the published medical literature and determining how many abstracts presented at the three major international cardiovascular conferences (the American Heart Association [AHA], American College of Cardiology [ACC], and European Society of Cardiology [ESC] annual scientific sessions from 2006 to 2008)
Abbreviations: AHA, American Heart Association; ACC, American College of Cardiology; ESC, European Society of Cardiology; GDP, gross domestic product. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Tagensvej 113b, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark. Tel.: + 45 41132400. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Østergaard).
were published as peer-reviewed papers within 2 years of their initial meeting presentation. We focused on the influence of the country of origin and the conversion of the abstracts into publications. We included 27,208 abstracts in our study from the Scientific Sessions of AHA, ACC, and ESC 2006–2008 (Table 1). We found that the USA was the country with the greatest scientific contribution with 38.1% of the abstracts presented. Germany was the country with the second most abstracts presented with 11.4% followed by Japan, Italy, and the UK, with 10.6%, 7.4%, and 6.8%, respectively (Fig. 1). Within two years of presentation, 30.6% of the abstracts were published. We further compared the countries' conversion rates from abstract to peer-reviewed publication with USA as a referent using multivariable adjusted logistic regression analysis. We found that Taiwan, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) were associated with the highest conversion rates compared with the US (all P b 0.05). Russia, Egypt, Portugal, and Slovenia were associated with the lowest conversion rates compared with the US (P b 0.001) (Fig. 2). New Zealand was the country with the highest percentage of published articles in a high-impact journal with 41.2% (Fig. 3). New Zealand was followed by Belgium, the UK, Canada and Sweden with 36.0%, 35.9%, 34.3%, and 33.9% respectively. The Republic of Korea, Brazil, Taiwan, Turkey and Singapore were the countries with the lowest percentage of articles published in a high-impact journal with 9.8%, 8.7%, 5.5%, 1.7%, and 0% respectively. In multivariable analyses, no country was associated with higher odds of publication relative to the US. The following countries were conversely associated with a lower likelihood of conversion from abstract to a high-impact publication compared with the US: the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Brazil, Greece, Spain, India, Poland, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey. Hence, Taiwan was associated with the highest odds of publication but one of the lowest rates of conversion to high-impact publications. Several studies have discussed how country of origin influences publication of medical research. Prabhakaran and colleagues found that high-income-countries (classified by the World Bank's gross national product estimates of 2004) were responsible for the majority (82.4%) of the articles published in the field of cardiovascular research. Prabhakaran et al. [5] found that national health expenditures also correlate with cardiovascular disease publications. Countries with health expenditures of more than 6.7% of their gross domestic product (GDP) published significantly more articles. A study by Winnik et al. [4] supports this finding. Winnik and colleagues examined the 10,020
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172 0167-5273/© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Østergaard L, et al, From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters, Int J Cardiol (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172
2
L. Østergaard et al. / International Journal of Cardiology xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Table 1 Characteristics of abstracts. Characteristic
Total
N Year, N (%) 2006 2007 2008 Major scientific category, % Basic science Clinical science Population science Origin of research (first author affiliation), % Americas Europe Africa Asia/Oceania Median number of authors on abstract (IQR) Abstract with N1 participating country, %
27208 9555 (35.1) 8843 (32.5) 8810 (32.4) 22.8 63.1 14.1 38.2 44.8 0.2 16.8 7 (5–9) 16.7
abstracts submitted at the ESC conference 2006. They found that for every 10,000 USD increase in per-capita GDP there was a 49% increased chance of publishing the presented abstract as a peer-reviewed article. In another study by Winnik et al. [6] it was found that 38% of the 10,020 abstracts presented at the 2006 ESC conference were published as peer-reviewed articles. To that end, Winnik et al. studied the origin of the abstracts presented at the conference; the majority of the presented abstracts came from Europe (57.5%) and followed by the American continent (33,7%). All five continents were represented at the conference. Along with the results of our study this suggests that the countries from Europe (mainly Western Europe) and the countries from the American continent are the major contributors to the AHA, ACC and ESC Scientific Sessions. A linguistic factor has been suggested by Coates et al. [7] to influence the publication process of cardiovascular research. They found that carelessly written articles were more likely to be rejected. Together with other studies, our results underline the need for efforts in order to limit the differences between countries in terms of research-conversion. First, the linguistic barriers could be broken with the help from author's editors; however, this requires funding. Second, countries' clinical societies could also help individual researchers by teaching language skills and academic writing. Clinical societies
Fig. 2. Odds ratios and confidence intervals of abstract-to-publication conversion relative to USA.
could even reward research projects that successfully produce peer-reviewed publications. Third, an increased international co-operation in the scientific community is of interest to break the linguistic barriers and to increase knowledge exchange. Mentor–mentee programs across countries could potentially help translate preliminary results into publications. This study used an automated computer algorithm to assess the conversion of abstracts to publications. This algorithm has previously been validated but could potentially underestimate conversion rates.
Fig. 1. The 30 most well-represented countries at the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology Scientific Sessions 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Please cite this article as: Østergaard L, et al, From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters, Int J Cardiol (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172
L. Østergaard et al. / International Journal of Cardiology xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
3
Fig. 3. % of publication with impact factor N10 per country.
We were only able to compare conversion of presented abstracts from these conferences and were therefore unable to compare those abstracts that were not accepted for presentation. Our study is based on the specialty of cardiovascular medicine, and broader studies are needed to understand which countries contribute to biomedical research writ large. We conclude that the conversion of abstracts to peer-reviewed publications in cardiovascular research is relatively low and varies widely among countries. In general, western countries were associated with a higher conversion rate and also with high-impact publications. National initiatives should be deployed in order to break down barriers to publication.
ZJ Eapen: Dr. Eapen contributed to the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. ED Peterson: Dr. Peterson contributed to the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. EL Fosbøl: Dr. Fosbøl had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Dr. Fosbøl contributed to the conception and design of the study, the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript.
Author contributions
References
L Østergaard: Dr. Østergaard had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Dr. Østergaard contributed to the conception and design of the study, the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. PL Fosbøl: Dr. Fosbøl had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Dr. Fosbøl contributed to the conception and design of the study, the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript. RA Harrington: Dr. Harrington contributed to the data analysis, the data interpretation, the manuscript drafting, and the critical revision of the manuscript.
[1] Abuzeid W, Fosbøl EL, Fosbøl PL, et al. Rate and predictors of the conversion of abstracts presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress scientific meetings to full peer-reviewed publications. Can J Cardiol November 2013;29(11):1520–3. [2] Fosbøl EL, Fosbøl PL, Harrington RA, Eapen ZJ, Peterson ED. Conversion of cardiovascular conference abstracts to publications. Circulation December 2012;126(24):2819–25. [3] Huffman MD, Baldridge A, Bloomfield GS, et al. Global cardiovascular research output, citations, and collaborations: a time-trend, bibliometric analysis (1999–2008). PLoS ONE 2013;8(12):e83440. [4] Winnik S, Speer T, Raptis DA, et al. The wealth of nations and the dissemination of cardiovascular research. Int J Cardiol November 2013;169(3):190–5 [5]. [5] Prabhakaran P, Ajay VS, Prabhakaran D, et al. Global cardiovascular disease research survey. J Am Coll Cardiol December 2007;50(24):2322–8 [11]. [6] Winnik S, Raptis DA, Walker JH, et al. From abstract to impact in cardiovascular research: factors predicting publication and citation. Eur Heart J December 2012;33(24):3034–45. [7] Coates R, Sturgeon B, Bohannan J, Pasini E. Language and publication in “Cardiovascular Research” articles. Cardiovasc Res Februar 2002;53(2):279–85 [1].
Please cite this article as: Østergaard L, et al, From abstract to peer-reviewed publication: Country matters, Int J Cardiol (2014), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.04.172
