Scientific production in health-related disciplines in WHO’s Western Pacific Region in 1992-2006.
1. Health services research. 2. Scientific literature.
ISBN 978-92-9061-420-3 (NLM Classification: WA 84.3)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 1
2. PRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES
IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC REGION 3 3. COLLABORATION PATTERNS 12
3.1 Collaboration of the Western Pacific
Region with other WHO regions 12 3.2 Collaboration by countries’ income group 13 3.3 Collaborations by group of countries 14 4. VISIBILITY OF THE PRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC
ARTICLES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC REGION 17 4.1 Production visibility by WHO regions 18 4.2 Visibility and collaboration in the Western Pacific Region 20 5. PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH PRODUCTION IN THE
WESTERN PACIFIC REGION 23 STATISTICAL ANNEX 26
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This report was prepared by Dr Guillermo Paraje from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago, Chile, building on analysis previously conducted in collaboration with Dr Ritu Sadana and the Health Research Systems Analysis Initiative, WHO, Geneva. Dr Reijo Salmela from the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific provided regional insights into planning of this study and its findings. WHO is grateful to Thomson Scientific for logistic support in setting up the databases and the contractual agreement to use the databases to support analysis across WHO regions.
In 2002, the Department of Research Policy & Cooperation at WHO Headquarters in Geneva initiated an intercountry project for health research systems analysis. Since 2006, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific has conducted similar work in selected countries. This report describes trends in scientific production in the Western Pacific Region from 1992 to 2006, with focus on the first 10 years.
The first chapter of this report examines the study’s methodology. More than 3.5 million bibliographic references in Thomson ISI Web of Science (health-related articles, notes and reviews) were analysed (period 1992-2001). A broad definition of health was used, covering related social, medical, environmental and physical sciences. Citations received by each reference over a three-year period after publication were also considered.
The second chapter reports on the scientific research output of countries in the Region.
Among the six WHO regions, the Western Pacific Region was the fastest growing region in health research, increasing its share of global research production by more than 30% from 1992 to 2006.
Not all countries in the region showed, however, the same level of performance. Of the five largest producers of research (Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea), China and, particularly, the Republic of Korea, showed the most impressive performances (the latter with a nine- fold increase in its global share).
The third chapter takes a closer look at collaboration patterns. International collaboration meant, with few exceptions, collaboration with countries from other WHO regions, mainly with the United States of America and high-income European countries. This type of collaboration represented around 66% to 90% of all international collaboration. Australia and Japan, high-income countries, collaborated extensively and almost exclusively with countries outside the Region. More than 80% of their iternational collaboration was conducted in this way, whereas only around 10% of their
international collaboration was done with other Western Pacific Region countries.
The other three largest producers collaborated more within the region. Around 25% of the papers produced with international collaboration by China and the Republic of Korea involved other Western Pacific Region countries, and in the case of New Zealand (during 2001) intra-regional collaboration reached 35%. Whereas collaboration outside the region was stable over time for Australia and China, it increased in the Republic of Korea and decreased in Japan and New Zealand.
Finally, the fourth chapter examines the visibility of the scientific research. Collaboration between low-income or middle-income countries was found mostly in “low visibility” research.
“Visibility” tends to be higher when collaboration is with countries outside the region. In almost all cases the proportion of “high visibility” research conducted in collaboration with countries outside the Westrern Pacific Region doubles or more than doubles the “low visibility” research.
1. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Pattern analyses of scientific output reveal not only specific results obtained during the research process, but also countries’ prospects in adopting new technologies and intentions towards improving the quality of life of their populations.
The most used production indicators arise from scientific publications, e.g. scientific journals and congresses, and are relatively easy to measure—especially those from scientific
publication databases. Since these databases detail where publications were generated, they provide pertinent information on scientific activity in specific institutions or countries. However, they can overlook such indications as unpublished production or training achieved in the production process.
Therefore, publication analyses do not exhaust the process of scientific output but do consider an important and easily measurable dimension.
The database used to conduct this study was compiled by Thomson Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and includes three of its products: the Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Although these indexes include various categories of publications, this report will consider only articles, notes and outlines that included a peer review process. These consist of publications in regularly published scientific journals, in which the principal criterion for inclusion was its high impact factor. It is known that the Thomson ISI database has limitations that are shared with most bibliographic databases, such as the exclusion of presentations in congresses and posters. Perhaps most important is that the database is biased towards publications in English and those that originate in Anglo-Saxon countries.1 However, this database contains the complete affiliation of all publication authors—in contrast to MedLine, which only contains information for the first author—and contains information on publications’ bibliographic references, allowing the analysis of the number of citations received after publication.
Scientific journals included in the Thomson ISI database are classified in at least one category or scientific field. For example, the Japanese Journal of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine is classified under physiology and sport sciences. Since the database does not discern health publications, however, it is necessary to make that separation individually. In this report, the definition of health is very broad and includes traditional health fields such as cardiology and paediatrics as well as other fields linked to the social sciences in which scientific journals tend to publish health-related articles, such as in economy or demography. Scientific fields were, in turn, grouped into seven areas used in the forthcoming analyses: clinical medicine, biomedical sciences, basic sciences, pharmacology, food sciences, social sciences and public health. Table 1 shows the grouping of the fields considered in the definition of health based on their primary scientific fields.
1 It is difficult, however, to establish how biased this is as no publication estimates comply with requirements similar to those established by Thomson ISI (e.g. in terms of periodicity of the publication or quality).
Table 1. Classification of health science fields
Although the Thomson ISI database supplies information on the institutional affiliations of all authors, knowing their actual contribution to a publication is impossible. Nor is it possible to assign an ad hoc structure to their contribution since institutional affiliations are not linked to each author.
Due to this limitation, it is presumed in this paper that all authors contributed equally to the article.
Therefore, output (i.e. an article) is divided into equal parts among all participating institutions. For example, an article in which two Australian, one Fijian and one Japanese institution are credited will mean a contribution of one half of an article for Australia, one fourth of an article for Fiji and another fourth for Japan. This form of counting is arbitrary but has the advantage of simplicity for computing and not distorting the regional totals of articles produced.
Finally, much effort has been made to provide data for 2002–2006. A web-based search was implemented utilizing Thomson ISI’s Web of Science, but data obtained in this manner differ from data for 1992–2001. First, the definition of health was different, as the web search was based on a string of keywords and not on the journal classification provided by ISI. The web-based search was therefore narrower, strictly based on traditional health topics. Secondly, the counting method was different. Research production during 1992–2001 was estimated using the aforementioned fractional counting method, but for the web searches, a whole counting method was used, which gave one point to each participating country in a publication. Trends obtained using this methodology should be treated as very rough indicatives of what countries and areas produced in 2002–2006 and should be used with caution. Such problems arising from web-based searching makes analysis based on collaboration and visibility of health-related research very difficult.
2. PRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC REGION2
Global health publications, i.e. articles, notes and reviews in scientific journals compiled by Thomson ISI, have evolved in the analysed period (1992–2001). At the beginning of the period, some 298 666 publications on health were produced, while during 2001, the publications totalled 349 171.
The average annual growth rate of health publications was 1.75%.3
This growth was unequally distributed in World Health Organization (WHO) regions, as shown in Table 2. The Western Pacific Region grew at an average annual rate of 4.9%—the highest rate among all regions. Other fast-growing regions included the Eastern Mediterranean Region with a rate of 4.2%, and the South-East Asia Region with 2.3%. Only the African Region had a negative annual growth rate. As is expected, within regions, countries or groups of countries performed differently. Within the Western Pacific Region, the five largest producers (Australia, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand) grew at an annual rate of 4.9%, whereas the Region’s other countries and areas had faster rates, averaging 5.5%.
Table 2. Annual average growth rate for health-related publication by WHO regions
Despite its moderate growth rate of 0.6%, the Region of the Americas was, on average, the main producer of health articles during the period analysed, as shown in Figure 1 and Table 3. On average, the Region—in which the main research producer, the United States of America (USA), is located—contributed 42.9% of global health-related production. The second-largest producer was the European Region with an average of 41.1%, and the third-largest producer was the Western Pacific Region, with an average share of 13.3%. Within this Region, the five largest countries contributed an average of 13.0%, leaving the other 24 countries and areas with the remaining 0.3%. This pattern of production makes the Western Pacific Region one of the most concentrated research-producing regions in the world.4
2 Most of this section analyses correspond to the 1992–2001 period, though some analyses are given for the 2002–2006 period.
3 To provide a context for this increase, the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual average rate of approximately 3.2%
from 1992 to 2001, according to the International Monetary Fund.
4 Within regions, each country’s contribution was uneven. In general, a strong concentration of scientific output was observed at the international level when a small group of countries in a region create most of the region’s production (Paraje G., Sadana R. and Karam G., Increasing international gaps in health-related publications, 2005, Science 308:959–960).
Regions Annual average growth rate 1992–2001 Region of the Americas 0.59
African Region -1.43
European Region 1.97
Eastern Mediterranean Region 4.18 South-East Asia Region 2.34
Western Pacific Region 4.89
Largest five producers 4.88
Rest of Western Pacific Region 5.53
Total 1.75
Figure 1. Health-related research production, by WHO region
AMR: Region of the Americas; AFR: African Region; EUR: European Region; EMR: Eastern Mediterranean Region; SEAR: South-East Asia Region;
WPR: Western Pacific Region
Table 3. Health-related research production by WHO region
Table 4 shows that the increase in health-related research production in some countries and areas of the Western Pacific Region is also noticeable in the ranking of global producers. The Region has four countries within the top 20 producers when considering the average 1992–2001 production:
Australia, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
Table 4. Top 20 health-related producers
Average 45.061992
40.630.84 0.631.36 11.48 11.26 0.22
44.931993 40.630.84 0.591.33 11.64 11.41 0.23
44.461994 40.650.79 0.631.33 12.15 11.92 0.23
44.201995 40.740.72 0.721.24 12.39 12.14 0.24
43.241996 0.68 41.23 1.250.67 12.93 12.70 0.23
42.481997 0.73 41.50 0.71 1.25 13.33 13.07 0.25
41.521998 0.68 41.63 0.73 1.33 14.12 13.86 0.26
41.301999 0.70 41.42 1.380.77 14.42 14.14 0.28
41.002000 0.65 41.30 1.370.71 14.97 14.66 0.31
40.652001 0.63 41.42 0.78 1.43 15.09 14.78 0.31
1992–2001 42.88 0.73 41.11 1.330.69 13.25 13.00 0.26 WHO Regions
Region of the Americas African Region European Region
Eastern Mediterranean Region South-East Asia Region Western Pacific Region Largest five producers Rest of Western Pacific Region
Top 20 producers 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 1992–2001 United States of America 39.22 38.77 38.51 37.49 36.72 35.76 35.35 35.04 35.23 34.70 36.68 United Kingdom 8.72 8.79 8.98 8.87 8.72 8.45 8.35 8.29 8.37 8.17 8.57 Japan 7.61 7.69 7.92 7.79 7.94 8.16 8.49 8.47 8.64 8.39 8.11 Germany 6.03 6.28 6.13 6.23 6.60 6.83 7.01 7.05 6.97 7.11 6.63 France 5.29 5.32 5.48 5.35 5.22 5.21 5.24 5.09 4.86 4.82 5.19 Canada 4.40 4.30 4.28 4.13 4.06 3.92 3.81 3.86 3.79 3.68 4.02 Italy 3.28 3.33 3.45 3.53 3.68 3.66 3.65 3.53 3.57 3.66 3.54 The Netherlands 2.30 2.39 2.35 2.40 2.35 2.39 2.35 2.27 2.25 2.23 2.33 Australia 2.11 2.17 2.23 2.26 2.25 2.31 2.34 2.35 2.37 2.32 2.27 Spain 1.71 1.83 1.85 1.95 2.06 2.17 2.21 2.28 2.28 2.33 2.06 Sweden 1.98 1.98 1.97 1.97 1.96 1.97 1.92 1.90 1.81 1.82 1.93 China 1.01 1.01 1.14 1.31 1.59 1.63 1.90 2.02 2.17 2.47 1.63 Switzerland 1.41 1.45 1.44 1.36 1.37 1.38 1.41 1.40 1.42 1.32 1.39 India 1.22 1.19 1.17 1.09 1.10 1.10 1.15 1.19 1.16 1.22 1.16 Israel 1.04 1.08 1.01 1.05 1.00 1.04 1.00 1.01 1.09 1.07 1.04 Belgium 1.00 0.99 1.05 1.06 1.04 1.04 1.07 1.03 0.99 1.03 1.03 Denmark 0.98 0.96 0.96 0.90 0.87 0.87 0.87 0.88 0.84 0.87 0.90 Finland 0.84 0.88 0.90 0.89 0.89 0.92 0.89 0.92 0.91 0.91 0.89 Brazil 0.58 0.51 0.54 0.59 0.65 0.73 0.83 0.91 0.99 1.02 0.73 Republic of Korea 0.13 0.17 0.23 0.40 0.51 0.56 0.73 0.89 1.06 1.20 0.59 Rest of the world 9.15 8.91 8.43 9.39 9.42 9.89 9.45 9.63 9.23 9.67 9.32 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Average
Table 5 and Figure 2 show how the scientific output evolved in each region as a proportion of global scientific health-related output. Both demonstrate a panorama similar to growth rates in regional production. The Western Pacific Region showed the most important growth between 1992 and 2001, with almost a 32% increase in its global share. The second-largest growth was registered by the Eastern Mediterranean Region, which increased almost 24% in the same period. The African Region and the Region of the Americas, on the contrary, ended the period with lower participation than the previous period.
Figure 2. Regional shares of world’s health-related research production, 1992-2001, (1992 = 100)
Table 5. Health-related research production by WHO region (1992 = 100)
As shown in Figures 3 and 4, strong differences in production existed within the
Western Pacific Region. For instance, the Republic of Korea experienced a nine-fold increase in its global share of research production, whereas China’s was two-fold.
Figure 3. Main research producers in the Western Pacific Region (1992 = 100)
Average 1992
100100 100100 100100
100100 1993 101.199.7 100.0 93.297.8 101.4 101.4 100.9
1994 94.098.7 100.0 99.098.0 105.8 105.9 103.5
1995 98.186.2 100.3 112.8 91.1 107.9 107.9 109.3
1996 96.0 81.7 101.5 105.8 112.691.8
112.8 101.1
1997 94.3 87.5 102.1 112.2 92.1 116.1 116.1 114.0
1998 92.1 81.4 102.4 114.5 97.5 123.0 123.1 116.6
1999 91.7 84.1 102.0 121.2 101.9 125.6 125.6 125.8
2000 91.0 77.6 101.6 112.1 100.8 130.4 130.2 140.2
2001 90.2 75.2 101.9 123.6 105.3 131.5 131.3 138.9
1992–2001 95.2 86.9 101.2 109.4 97.6 115.4 115.4 115.0 WHO Regions
Region of the Americas African Region European Region
Eastern Mediterranean Region South-East Asia Region Western Pacific Region Largest five producers Rest of Western Pacific Region
WPR EMR
SEAR
EUR AMR
AFR
Republic of Korea
China
Japan, Australia and New Zealand
WPR: Western Pacific Region; EMR: Eastern Mediterranean Region; SEAR: South-East Asia Region; EUR: European Region; AMR: The Americas;
AFR: African Region
The other main producers also demonstrated significant increases as shown in Figure 4.
Japan, the Region’s largest producer, had a 10-point increase in its global share of production, as did Australia. New Zealand finished with a similar participation rate to 1992.
Figure 4. Main research producers in the Western Pacific Region (1992 = 100)
Although the dataset available to WHO ends in 2001, there are some indications that the trends in this period continued. Using Thomson ISI’s website and searching for articles, notes and reviews on health topics produced by the Region’s five main research producers, research production continued to grow strongly.5 Though these results are not directly comparable with those obtained for 1992–2001 period, they demonstrate an important increase in the global share of research production of the five countries since 1992.
Figure 5. Main research producers in the Western Pacific Region (2001 = 100)
5 The data obtained from Thomson ISI’s website are different from those obtained for 1992–2001. Please see Section 1 for a discussion on web- based searches.
Japan
Australia
New Zealand
Figure 5 shows that China and the Republic of Korea continued to lead the growth rates, with an increase around 150% for both in their respective global shares. Australia, Japan and
New Zealand also had important increases ranging from 50% to around 25%. Given the regional importance of these five producers, it was likely that the Region’s share in world research production increased rapidly during 2002–2006.
Table 6 displays the evolution of the global share of health-related research production for the Region’s 24 countries and areas,6 which have been grouped into three ad hoc groups. The first group consists of the five largest producers, representing 13% of the world’s production on average. Within this group, Japan contributed an average of 8.1% of the world’s research production, Australia
contributed 2.3%, China 1.6%, the Republic of Korea 0.6% and New Zealand 0.4%. The 20-fold difference between the research share of the first producer (Japan) and the fifth (New Zealand) is a good indicator of the high research concentration that existed in this Region.
Table 6. Health-related research production in countries and areas of the Western Pacific Region, percentage of world production
The second group consists of Pacific islands, which contributed an average of only 0.02% of the world’s research production. Even Fiji and Papua New Guinea had very small participation rates.
The third group, a heterogeneous group of mid-sized and small countries, contributed an average of 0.26% of world’s research production in health-related topics, with Singapore
representing more than two thirds of this group’s production. Malaysia comes in second with around 0.06% of world’s production.
6 Only countries or areas that had at least one publication in the period are shown.
Countries 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 1992–2001 Five largest producers 11.26 11.41 11.92 12.14 12.70 13.07 13.86 14.14 14.66 14.78 13.00 Australia 2.11 2.17 2.23 2.26 2.25 2.31 2.34 2.35 2.37 2.32 2.27 China 1.01 1.01 1.14 1.31 1.59 1.63 1.90 2.02 2.17 2.47 1.63 Japan 7.61 7.69 7.92 7.79 7.94 8.16 8.49 8.47 8.64 8.39 8.11 Republic of Korea 0.13 0.17 0.23 0.40 0.51 0.56 0.73 0.89 1.06 1.20 0.59 New Zealand 0.39 0.38 0.41 0.39 0.41 0.40 0.40 0.41 0.42 0.41 0.40 Pacific Islands 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 Cook Islands 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Fiji 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Marshall Islands 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Federated States of Micronesia 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Palau 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Papua New Guinea 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 Samoa 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Solomon Islands 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Tonga 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Denmark 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Tuvalu 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Vanuatu 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Other countries 0.20 0.20 0.21 0.23 0.22 0.24 0.25 0.27 0.31 0.30 0.24 Brunei Darussalam 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Cambodia 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Lao People’s Democratic Republic 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Malaysia 0.05 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.05 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.06 Mongolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Philippines 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 Singapore 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.14 0.13 0.16 0.16 0.17 0.21 0.21 0.16 Viet Nam 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 TOTAL 11.48 11.64 12.15 12.39 12.93 13.33 14.12 14.42 14.97 15.09 13.25
Average
Table 7 shows the average number of papers in which institutions from the Region’s countries have been involved.7 Unsurprisingly, Japan appears here in first place with around 59% of the
publications. Australia has 18% of the total, while China has 13%.
Table 7. Average annual number of publications by countries of the Western Pacific Region
Table 7 explains the modest involvement that many of the Region’s countries had in the research production process at least when considering publications indexed by Thomson ISI.
Malaysia, the Philippines and Viet Nam, even when jointly considered, did not reach a 1%
contribution rate.
Figure 6 details the Region’s research concentration. Even when excluding the five largest countries, the concentration of research production was very large. Indeed, adding up the
contribution of the second five-largest producers—Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam—they showed a similar concentration level of 96%. This fractal pattern of production points towards three levels of countries: the large world producers (Australia, China, Japan, Republic of Korea and New Zealand) that had an important share in world research production and led the Region’s increase in the world’s research production, the large regional producers
(Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam) that had limited
participation in world’s research production but are significant in the Region, and the small producers that had very little participation in the Region’s research production.
Country Average 1992–2001 Share (%)
Australia 8 778 17.8
Brunei Darussalam 5 0.0
Cambodia 5 0.0
China 6 360 12.9
Cook Islands 1 0.0
Fiji 7 0.0
Japan 29 184 59.1
Republic of Korea 2 331 4.7
Lao People’s Democratic Republic 3 0.0
Malaysia 240 0.5
Marshall Islands 1 0.0
Federated States of Micronesia 1 0.0
Mongolia 10 0.0
New Zealand 1 615 3.3
Palau 1 0.0
Papua New Guinea 53 0.1
Philippines 98 0.2
Samoa 2 0.0
Singapore 629 1.3
Solomon Islands 3 0.0
Tonga 1 0.0
Tuvalu 0.0
Vanuatu 3 0.0
Viet Nam 73 0.1
Total 49 403 100
7 Countries’ contributions were counted by giving one unit to each participating country in the publication, i.e., the ―”whole counting” method The total in Table 7 should not be treated as the total number of papers produced with the involvement of these countries, as some countries may have collaborated on a publication and were counted twice.
Figure 6. Average annual number of publications in the countries in Western Pacific Region in 1992-2001
The research pattern displayed in Table 6 can be also considered within the regional context.
Table 8 displays the participation and evolution of countries’ research production as a share of regional production. Line one of this table demonstrates the extreme concentration of research production in the Region: the five largest countries produced 98% of the health-related publications.
Japan, the largest producer, contributed an average of 61.5%, though its regional share fell steadily from 66.0% in 1992 to 56.0% in 2001. This decrease was not produced by a decline in the number of publications in which Japanese scientists were involved, but by other countries’ large increases in production. In other words, Japan’s decrease was not in absolute but in relative terms. The second largest producer, Australia, experienced the same pattern, as its participation in regional production decreased from 18.4% in 1992 to 15.4% in 2001.
Table 8. Health-related research production in countries of the Western Pacific Region, percentage of regional production
The decline in these countries was due to the rising production rates of China and the Republic of Korea. Their scientific production reflected the upsurge in their economies and aggressive scientific strategies, which were aimed at gaining presence in international journals.
China’s regional share doubled from 8.8% in 1992 to 16.4% in 2001, while Republic of Korea’s participation went from 1.2% in 1992 to 8.0% in 2001.
Other countries also experienced increases. Singapore’s regional share grew from 1.1% in 1992 to 1.4% in 2001. In fact, at the beginning of the period, Singapore and the Republic of Korea had similar research production, but the Republic of Korea vastly surpassed Singapore by the period’s end. This pattern may be explained by the early development of Singapore’s health research system, making Singapore reach its publication peak in the early 1990s, or perhaps by different research policy strategies.
Table 9 shows the scientific output for the 10 largest producers in the Region (which comprise more than 99% of the Region’s production) by scientific area for 2001. Such areas (defined in
Chart 1) corresponded to where a scientific journal originated and not to the publication itself. A scientific journal can be classified into several areas; therefore, the total of the scientific output by area surpassed the total scientific output of a country.
1992 98.06 18.41 8.84 66.27 1.16 3.38 0.20 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.16 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.02 1.74 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.14 1.14 0.06 100
1993 98.06 18.61 8.66 66.1 1.46 3.23 0.21 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 1.73 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.48 0.01 0.10 1.08 0.06 100
1994 98.10 18.32 9.38 65.16 1.86 3.38 0.17 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 1.73 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.48 0.01 0.11 1.06 0.05 100
1995 98.03 18.24 10.58 62.88 3.21 3.12 0.11 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.86 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.50 0.01 0.16 1.12 0.06 100
1996 98.25 17.42 12.27 61.43 3.97 3.16 0.08 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.67 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.47 0.01 0.11 0.98 0.09 100
1997 98.09 17.36 12.25 61.22 4.23 3.04 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.84 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.40 0.02 0.13 1.18 0.09 100
1998 98.16 16.54 13.43 60.15 5.19 2.85 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.77 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.41 0.01 0.12 1.13 0.08 100
1999 98.05 16.28 14.03 58.73 6.16 2.85 0.07 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.88 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.42 0.01 0.13 1.19 0.09 100
2000 97.91 15.8 14.51 57.7 7.1 2.81 0.05 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.04 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.38 0.00 0.12 1.42 0.09 100
2001 97.95 15.37 16.35 55.59 7.95 2.68 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.98 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.39 0.01 0.11 1.36 0.1 100
Average 1992-2001
98.07 17.23 12.03 61.52 4.23 3.05 0.11 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.82 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.43 0.01 0.12 1.17 0.08 100 Countries
Five largest producers Australia
China Japan
Republic of Korea New Zealand Pacific Islands Cook Islands Fiji
Marshall Islands
Federated States of Micronesia Palau
Papua New Guinea Samoa
Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu Other countries Brunei Darussalam Cambodia
Lao People’s Democratic Republic Malaysia
Mongolia Philippines Singapore Viet Nam
TOTAL
Table 9. Research production by scientific field for the 10 largest research producers, 2001
(1) Scientific fields are defined in Table 1.
(2) Since scientific publications may be classified in more than one field, some percentages may be greater than 100%.
Except for the Philippines, all countries in this group participated in publications on clinical medicine the most. In the largest producer of the Region, Japan, this area represented little more than 43%. Biomedical sciences and basic sciences represented the other most important groups. Australia had the highest proportion in biomedical sciences (almost 28% of its production), while China and the Philippines had the lowest percentages with 21% and 19%, respectively.
In relative terms, the Republic of Korea was the principal producer in basic sciences, with 35% of its production in this area, while New Zealand and Papua New Guinea produced much less.
Pharmacology was the fourth area of importance, with a total production between 5% (Australia) and 26% (Papua New Guinea).
For public health and health systems, Japan had an extremely low participation rate at only 1.5%. Japan was not even the main regional producer in this area—in absolute numbers, it only produced 481 publications in 2001. Among the largest producers, Australia, China and New Zealand had relatively high shares of publications in this area, while Papua New Guinea and Viet Nam (with 17% and 14%, respectively) were also significant contributors.
Number of Publications
Scientific Field (1) Japan Australia China Korea Zealand Singapore Malaysia Philippines Viet Nam Guinea Clinical medicine 43.2 44.8 39.9 39.4 39.7 41.5 39.8 28.0 29.1 63.0 Biomedical sciences 26.7 27.7 21.2 23.0 22.7 24.0 22.3 19.0 22.2 26.1 Basic sciences 28.9 22.6 28.7 34.9 21.7 27.6 22.7 31.0 23.1 13.0
Pharmacology 9.5 5.2 11.0 9.9 9.1 5.9 11.0 12.0 16.2 26.1 Food sciences 3.6 1.7 1.8 2.1 3.4 2.1 6.1 6.0 6.0 4.3
Social sciences
and social welfare 0.6 3.5 1.8 0.5 3.9 1.4 1.1 5.0 3.4 4.3 Public health
and health systems 1.5 6.4 5.4 2.9 7.0 3.8 7.6 8.0 14.5 17.4 TOTAL NUMBER OF
PUBLICATIONS (2) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
New Rep. of Papua New Number of Publications Scientific Field (1) Japan Australia China Korea Zealand Singapore Malaysia Philippines Viet Nam Guinea Clinical medicine 13 924 4 436 4 006 1 879 709 381 105 28 34 29
Biomedical sciences 8 618 2 747 2 131 1 096 405 220 59 19 26 12
Basic sciences 9 338 2 241 2 883 1 665 388 253 60 31 27 6
Pharmacology 3 058 515 1 100 472 163 54 29 12 19 12
Food sciences 1 168 172 183 101 61 19 16 6 7 2
Social sciences and social welfare 191 347 182 24 70 13 3 5 4 2
Public health and health systems 481 630 542 137 125 35 20 8 17 8
TOTAL NUMBER OF PUBLICATIONS (2) 32 263 9 908 10 036 4 767 1 786 917 264 100 117 46
New
Rep. of Papua New
3. COLLABORATION PATTERNS
The previous section supplies data on the production efforts of countries in the
Western Pacific Region and how that production evolved in over a single decade. However, since countries’ contributions to publications were judged to be equal for simplicity’s sake, information on collaboration and potential networks created in that process was lost. Examining how different countries related when publishing the results of their scientific output is useful to discern if
collaborations were determined by cultural affinities, geographical proximity or partners’ economic resources to finance research. In methodological terms, the publications used to record collaboration patterns between regions or countries should be examined differently than the data in the previous section.
In the previous section, for example, if a publication had, as scientific authors, two Australian institutions and one Korean institution, for the purpose of analysing the production of both countries, two thirds of the publication is assigned to Australia and one third to the Republic of Korea. However, for this section, what matters is not how much each country contributes but that a collaboration with other countries exists and can be identified. Therefore, in the aforementioned case, it would only be recorded as Australia collaborating with the Republic of Korea (and vice versa). Double accounting of the publications with some international collaboration prevents the participation percentages of each country in the whole Western Pacific Region from totalling 100%.
3.1 Collaboration of the Western Pacific Region with other WHO regions
A first approximation of the Western Pacific Region’s patterns of collaboration were demonstrated by how the Region relates to the rest of the world, which is grouped according to the WHO regions. Table 10 displays those patterns.
Table 10. Collaboration of the Western Pacific Region with other regions, 2001
The Western Pacific Region partnered most with the Region of the Americas and the European Region when publishing scientific articles. During 2001, more than 7200 and 4800 publications, respectively, were written jointly. Of these joint publications, in 97% and 95% of the cases,
respectively, there was some involvement from at least one of the Western Pacific Region’s largest five producers.
The other regions collaborated little with the Western Pacific Region. The South-East Asian Region, the Western Pacific Region’s third main partner, only participated in 400 publications; the African Region and the Eastern Mediterranean Region participated in only 174 and 102 publications, respectively. In these publications, large Western Pacific Region producers participated in around 90%. Interestingly, the largest proportional involvement of large producers was with regions with the highest concentrations of high-income countries.
AFR AMR EMR EUR SEAR
Western Pacific Region, number of publications (1) 174 7 222 102 4 888 400 Western Pacific Region, number of publications
with involvement of five largest producers (2) 157 7 012 94 4 648 353 Western Pacific Region, number of publications
without involvement of five largest producers (3) 17 210 8 240 47 Western Pacific Region, with involvement of five largest producers
(Percentages of the Region production) 90.2 97.1 92.2 95.1 88.3 (1) Publications in collaboration with the entire Western Pacific Region
(2) Publications in collaboration with at least one of the Western Pacific Region’s five largest research producers (3) Publications in collaboration with none of the Western Pacific Region’s five largest research producers
AFR: African Region; AMR: Region of the Americas; EMR: Eastern Mediterranean Region; EUR: European Region; SEAR: South-East Asia Region
These figures do not correspond to exclusive bilateral collaborations among the regions, e.g.
countries of the Western Pacific Region collaborating only with countries the South-East Asia region, but any kind of collaboration. Therefore, the low numbers obtained for the African Region or the Eastern Mediterranean Region reveal the poor contact of these regions’ institutions even within the framework of broad collaboration projects including, for instance, European countries. As Table 10 shows, collaboration with some countries from certain regions is sporadic and scarce.
What causal factors can explain these collaboration patterns? Unfortunately, the bibliographic databases do not provide direct responses since they only collect information on authors’ affiliations and place of publication. However, based on these data, it is possible to infer that collaboration was determined, to a great extent, by the existence of economic resources. It was, then, the availability of these resources and not the existence of common research agendas that may have facilitated
collaboration between countries or regions.
3.2 Collaboration by countries’ income group
Table 11 shows another aspect of the collaborative relationship between countries in the Western Pacific Region and the rest of the world. Intraregional collaboration is detailed, i.e. research production conducted between at least two institutions from the Region without the involvement of any institution from outside the region, as well as national collaboration, i.e. institutions from the same country participating in the research outcome. The table further demonstrates extraregional collaboration, i.e. research production that includes some participation from countries from other regions, which may feature collaboration with high-income countries, high-middle income countries, low-middle income countries and low-income countries.8 Thus, for instance, a paper written by a Japanese institution and a Nigerian institution is considered an extraregional collaboration with a low-income country. Furthermore, if an American institution was also involved in that collaboration, then it is considered as an extraregional collaboration with a high-income and a low-income country.9
Table 11 also supplies information on articles written without any collaboration by a single participating institution. The total number of publications is the sum of intraregional collaborations, extraregional collaborations and no collaborations.
Table 11. Collaboration patterns in the Western Pacific Region
(1) Collaboration between at least two institutions from Western Pacific Region (could be from the same country) exclusively (2) Collaboration with at least one institution from other regions (3) Only a single institution involved in the publication
8 This classification of countries based on their average income is sourced from those made by the World Bank for 2002.
9 This way of counting publications may cause double-counting; therefore, the total extraregional collaboration is lower than the sum of the collaborations within the different income groups.
1992 2001
Type of Collaboration Publications Percentage Publications Percentage Intraregional collaboration (1)
Extraregional collaboration (2) with high income countries with high-middle income countries with low-middle income countries with low income countries No collaboration (3)
TOTAL 13 131
4 787 4 526 116194 18 377130 36 295
36.2 13.2 12.5 0.3 0.5 0.4 50.6 100
26 805 11 332 10 621 322635 20 642330 779
45.619.3 18.10.5 1.10.6 35.1100
Figure 7 shows the magnitude and direction of the main changes in collaborations that occurred from 1992 to 2001. The proportional share of publications without any collaboration (intra- or extraregional) declined: in 1992, little more than 50% of publications were from individual institutions, and in 2001, this figure declined to 35%. The development and extensive use of new remote communication technologies undoubtedly influenced this decline.
Figure 7. Collaboration patterns in the Western Pacific Region
The relative decrease in noncollaborative research meant an increase in intraregional and extraregional collaboration. The increase in intraregional collaboration was larger (from 36% of total publications in 1992 to 45% in 2001). Extraregional collaboration increased from 13% in 1992 to 19% in 2001. This was due to growth in scientific collaboration with high-income countries, which also grew by around 6% (from 12% of total research production in 1992 to 18% in 2001). Overall, collaboration with this group of countries represented around 94% of extraregional collaborations. A closer examination reveals that the USA, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Germany and France were the main collaborators and that they constituted the bulk of extraregional collaboration with the Western Pacific Region. Collaboration with other income groups also
increased—collaboration with low-middle-income countries more than doubled in this period—
though its magnitude remained very low. The figures given in Table 11 demonstrate that the availability of resources to finance collaborative project strongly influenced collaborations between countries. This is evident not only by the volume of collaborations with high-income countries in regard to the total collaborations but also the trend followed during the 10 years analysed.
3.3 Collaborations by group of countries
A closer look at intrazone collaboration is given in Table 12, showing how the Western Pacific Region subgroups collaborated during 2001.
The intersections of the table show the number of joint publications each subgroup had exclusively, i.e. only between two of them or as part of collaborations with other subgroups, for intrazone collaboration projects. The figures in bold demonstrate exclusive collaborations within the specific subgroup.
