IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v7y2013i1p240-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scientometrics reveals funding priorities in medical research policy

Author

Listed:
  • Vanderelst, Dieter
  • Speybroeck, Niko

Abstract

Several studies have assessed whether funding of disease specific research is in line with their burden. The authors of these studies concluded that the burden of a disease was a good predictor for its associated research funding. However, previous analyses did not take into account diseases that mainly affect people living in low income regions, i.e. so-called diseases of poverty. Moreover, the analyses were only performed for the burden diseases cause in high income countries. We investigated whether the conclusions about the relationship between burden and funding still holds when (1) including diseases of poverty and (2) accounting for the burden of diseases in low income countries. We found that the relationship between the burden and the level of diseases specific funding decreases for people living in low income countries. We find the best predictor for the level of funding to be the mortality in high income countries. In contrast to previous studies, we were able to include more diseases into our analyses (74). This enabled us to discover differences in funding levels between and within groups of diseases. we found that research on cancers was over funded with respect to the associated burden. In contrast, diseases of poverty systematically receive less funding than would be expected based on their burden. Other groups of diseases (cardiovascular diseases and mental illnesses) contained both over and under funded diseases.

Suggested Citation

  • Vanderelst, Dieter & Speybroeck, Niko, 2013. "Scientometrics reveals funding priorities in medical research policy," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 240-247.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:7:y:2013:i:1:p:240-247
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2012.10.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157712000867
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2012.10.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mangai Balasegaram & Sooria Balasegaram & Denis Malvy & Pascal Millet, 2008. "Neglected Diseases in the News: A Content Analysis of Recent International Media Coverage Focussing on Leishmaniasis and Trypanosomiasis," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(5), pages 1-5, May.
    2. Leslie A Gillum & Christopher Gouveia & E Ray Dorsey & Mark Pletcher & Colin D Mathers & Charles E McCulloch & S Claiborne Johnston, 2011. "NIH Disease Funding Levels and Burden of Disease," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(2), pages 1-9, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiang Wu & Miao Jin & Xiu-Hao Ding, 2015. "Diversity of individual research disciplines in scientific funding," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(2), pages 669-686, May.
    2. Blanca De-Miguel-Molina & Scott W. Cunningham & Fernando Palop, 2017. "Analyzing Funding Patterns and Their Evolution in Two Medical Research Topics," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(02), pages 1-39, April.
    3. Jacek Bogocz & Andrzej Bak & Jaroslaw Polanski, 2014. "No free lunches in nature? An analysis of the regional distribution of the affiliations of Nature publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 547-568, October.
    4. Liang, Zhentao & Ba, Zhichao & Mao, Jin & Li, Gang, 2023. "Research complexity increases with scientists’ academic age: Evidence from library and information science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ciarli, Tommaso & Ràfols, Ismael, 2019. "The relation between research priorities and societal demands: The case of rice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 949-967.
    2. Eduardo Martínez-Martínez & María Luisa Zaragoza & Elmer Solano & Brenda Figueroa & Patricia Zúñiga & Juan P Laclette, 2012. "Health Research Funding in Mexico: The Need for a Long-Term Agenda," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Joseph Millum, 2023. "Should health research funding be proportional to the burden of disease?," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 22(1), pages 76-99, February.
    4. Kaushik Ghosh & Irina Bondarenko & Kassandra L Messer & Susan T Stewart & Trivellore Raghunathan & Allison B Rosen & David M Cutler, 2020. "Attributing medical spending to conditions: A comparison of methods," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, August.
    5. Zhang, Lin & ZHAO, Wenjing & Liu, Jianhua & Sivertsen, Gunnar & HUANG, Ying, 2020. "Do national funding organizations properly address the diseases with the highest burden? - Observations from China and the UK," SocArXiv ckpf8, Center for Open Science.
    6. Luba Katz & Rebecca V Fink & Samuel R Bozeman & Barbara J McNeil, 2014. "Using Health Care Utilization and Publication Patterns to Characterize the Research Portfolio and to Plan Future Research Investments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-12, December.
    7. Shibayama, Sotaro & Baba, Yasunori, 2015. "Impact-oriented science policies and scientific publication practices: The case of life sciences in Japan," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 936-950.
    8. Lin Zhang & Wenjing Zhao & Jianhua Liu & Gunnar Sivertsen & Ying Huang, 2020. "Do national funding organizations properly address the diseases with the highest burden?: Observations from China and the UK," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1733-1761, November.
    9. Ohid Yaqub & Javier A Luna & Duncan Aq Moore & Alfredo Yegros-Yegros, 2022. "Responding to a disease with resources from other diseases: Evidence from Zika vaccine research dynamics [Protective Efficacy of Multiple Vaccine Platforms against Zika Virus Challenge in Rhesus Mo," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(6), pages 942-950.
    10. Michelle Imison & Simon Chapman, 2010. "‘Disease, Disaster and Despair’? The Presentation of Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries on Australian Television," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-5, November.
    11. Irwin Feller, 2022. "Assessing the societal impact of publicly funded research," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 632-650, June.
    12. Palmer, Jennifer J. & Kelly, Ann H. & Surur, Elizeous I. & Checchi, Francesco & Jones, Caroline, 2014. "Changing landscapes, changing practice: Negotiating access to sleeping sickness services in a post-conflict society," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 396-404.
    13. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S Graff Zivin & Danielle Li & Bhaven N Sampat, 2019. "Public R&D Investments and Private-sector Patenting: Evidence from NIH Funding Rules," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 117-152.
    14. Dieter Vanderelst & Sara Speybroeck & Niko Speybroeck, 2012. "The perceived impact of publications on Neglected Tropical Zoonoses as measured by their impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(2), pages 331-342, February.
    15. David Hsiehchen & Magdalena Espinoza & Antony Hsieh, 2017. "Disease burden and the advancement of biomedical knowledge," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 321-333, January.
    16. Thomas Fürst & Kigbafori D Silué & Mamadou Ouattara & Dje N N'Goran & Lukas G Adiossan & Yao N'Guessan & Fabian Zouzou & Siaka Koné & Eliézer K N'Goran & Jürg Utzinger, 2012. "Schistosomiasis, Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis, and Sociodemographic Factors Influence Quality of Life of Adults in Côte d'Ivoire," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(10), pages 1-12, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:7:y:2013:i:1:p:240-247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.