INTERNATIONAL FLOW OF DENTAL RESEARCH:
A REVIEW OF IADR ABSTRACTS FOR 1996 AND 1997 AND FORTY DENTAL JOURNALS PUBLISHED IN 1997.
By Ann Marie Corry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, School of Dentistry. 650 E. 25^th Street, KCMO 64108

INTRODUCTION:

Recent advances in information technology and the growth of the world wide web have

made a significant impact on globalization of scientific research and its subsequent publication in journal format. Dermatology, as an area of medicine, has studied the international scope of dermatology journals extensively (1,2). Other areas of medicine have also studied journals in terms of international publication: cardiology (3,4); hypertension (5); neurology (6); and, rheumatology (7).

In 1992, the international pattern of research and development in the area of dental materials was investigated (8). Journal articles for the years 1981-1985 and patents for the years 1979-1988 were evaluated in terms of country of origin. This study found that United

States-based researchers produced approximately one half of all dental materials journal articles published world wide and more than half of the patents. Other countries represented with significant research were: Great Britain, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and

West Germany.

PURPOSE:

On the basis of this past research, the purpose of this study was to determine which countries are doing dental research, where the research results are published, and whether the country of origin of the author and the country of origin of the journal impacts on publication.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

To determine those countries doing dental research, ten percent of the abstracts of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) for the years 1996 and 1997 were randomly selected (337/1996 and 350/1997). The country of origin of the primary author for

each abstract was noted.

To determine where the research results were published, forty dental journals indexed by

Science Citation Index were selected. These journals are listed by country of origin in Table 1.

Three thousand four hundred and four articles for the year 1997 were selected via a MEDLINE

search. The search was limited to those articles indexed as Controlled Clinical Trials, Journal

Articles or Randomized Clinical Trials. Review articles were eliminated. Ten percent of the

final search result for each journal title was randomly selected for a total sample of 357 articles. The country of origin of the primary author and the country of origin of the journal title were noted for each article.

RESULTS:

For the year 1996, the IADR abstracts selected for this study were presented by 27 countries with 83.2% of the research presented by seven countries: USA (58.3%); Japan (8.6%);

Canada and UK (4.1%); Germany (3.5%) and Brazil and Finland (2.3%). For the year 1997, the IADR abstracts selected were presented by 25 countries with 88.4% of the research presented by six countries: USA (54.2%); Japan (15.7%); Germany (6.3%); Canada (4.6%); and UK and

Brazil (3.7%). Table 2 shows a comparison of the years 1996 and 1997.

In the review of the published articles selected, forty countries were represented with five countries accounting for 59.1% of the articles: USA (27.7%); UK (11.4%); Japan (8.9%); Sweden (6.1%) and Germany (5.0%). Table 3 illustrates the percentage of domestic Vs international authorship in the journals surveyed for this study. Of the seventeen dental journals published in the USA, 58% of the articles were by international authors. Of the ten dental journals published in Denmark, 98.8% of the articles were by international authors. Of the eight dental journals published in the UK, 65% of the articles were by international authors. Five countries were represented with one journal title each: Norway (85.7 % international); Germany (66.7% international); Switzerland (100% international); Australia (43% international) and

Sweden (100% domestic).

Eleven to sixteen percent of the research as represented by IADR abstracts and forty-one percent of the published articles in the dental literature are produced by thirty-five countries other than those designated as major producers.

DISCUSSION:

The results of this study were similar to the results of the study of dental materials publications and patents (8). Distribution of dental materials publications and patents showed eight countries with high representation: USA, UK, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Denmark,

Australia and West Germany. The current study showed dental research as represented by IADR abstracts included five of the same countries: USA, Japan, Canada, Germany and UK. Country of origin of authors for articles reviewed in the current study were also represented by five of the same countries: USA, UK, Japan, Sweden and Germany.

While there was major representation by relatively few countries world wide, eleven to

sixteen percent of the abstracts and forty one percent of the articles were by thirty-five other

countries. This indicates that the country of origin of the author does not prevent publication of

research in international journals.

It is interesting to note that the USA was represented by 54.2%-58.3% of the IADR abstracts for the years 1996 and 1997 but was represented by only 27.7% of the published articles. The UK was represented by less than 5% of the abstracts but 11.4% of the published articles.

This study was limited by various factors which could indicate future areas of study.

For example, this study was limited to the forty dental journals indexed by Science Citation

Index. However, there are more than 400 dental journals indexed by the National Library of Medicine for MEDLINE. The American Dental Association Bureau of Library Services receives more than 955 journal titles. A future study might include a larger sample of journal titles or a

larger sample of journal articles. It might also be of interest to survey a sample of dental journals published in a specific discipline such as periodontology or oral surgery. In this study, all of the journals in the sample were published in English. A future study might include journals published in English and those published in other languages.

The current study was limited to the country of origin of the primary author. However, other studies have surveyed the country of origin of all authors on each article to determine the flow of international cooperative efforts. Future investigations which track the country of origin of every author in both IADR abstracts and published dental journals might reveal extensive research cooperation.

Other areas of bibliometric research might include in-depth citation analysis. Are the citations of published articles international or domestic in scope? What countries are listed as the most cited for dental research or for specific areas of dentistry? One interesting study on

meta-analyses observed that recommendations for treatment might have been different if non-English articles had not been systematically eliminated from the review (9).

CONCLUSIONS:

Within the parameters of this study, it can be concluded that more than 80% of dental research as represented by IADR abstracts is done by seven countries. Five countries account for 59.1% of published research articles. However, eleven to sixteen percent of the research represented in IADR abstracts and forty-one percent of the published articles are produced by other countries. Overall, this review indicates that dental research is international in scope and the country of origin of the author is not a limiting factor in the publication of dental research.

LITERATURE CITED:

1. Dubin DB, Arndt KA. The home-lands of top cited articles. Arch Dermatol 1997 Jan; 133(1):21-23.

2. Stern RS, Arndt KA. Growth of international contributions to dermatologic literature. Arch Dermatol 1999 Sept;135(9):1074-1076.

3. Roberts WC. Comparison of 7 English language cardiology journals for 1983. Am J. Cardiol 1984 Mar 1;53(6):862-9.

4. deJong JW, Schaper W. The international rank order of clinical cardiology. Eur Heart J. 1996 Jan;17(1):35-42.

5. Hatfield P, Beevers DG. An analysis of the hypertension journals. J Hum Hypertens 1995 Jan;9(1):31-6.

6. Jamieson PW. Neurology research: a journal survey, 1980-1990. Ann Neurol 1992 Jul; 32(1): 87-93.

7. Ruiz MT, Alvares-Dardet C, Vela P, Pasccual E. Study designs and statistical methods in rheumatological journals: an international comparison.
Br J. Rheumatol 1991 Oct;30(5):352-5.

8. Garrison HH, Herman SS, Lipton JA. International distribution of dental materials publications and patents. Den Mat 1992 Jan;8(1):42-48.

9. Gregoire G, Derderian F, LeLorier J. Selecting the language of the publication included ina meta-analysis: is there a Tower of Babel bias? J. Clin Epidemiol 1995 Jan;48(1):159-63.

TABLE 1

LIST OF JOURNALS SURVEYED, COUNTRY OF ORIGIN AND
NUMBER OF ARTICLES INCLUDED PER JOURNAL

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