Analysis of full-text publication and publishing predictors of abstracts presented at an Italian public health meeting (2005–2007)

Abstract

BackgroundIn Public Health, a thorough review of abstract quality evaluations and the publication history of studies presented at scientific meetings has never been conducted. To analyse the long-term outcome of quality abstracts submitted to conferences of Italian Society of Hygiene and Public Health (SItI) from 2005 to 2007, we conducted a second analysis of previously published material aiming to estimate full-text publication rate of high quality abstract presented at Italian public health meetings, and to identify predictors of full-text publication.MethodsThe search was undertaken through scientific databases and search engines and through the web sites of the major Italian journals of Public Health. For each publication confirmed as a full text paper, the journal name, impact factor, year of publication, gender of the first author, type of study design, characteristics of the results and sample size were collected.ResultsThe overall publication rate of the abstracts presented is 23.5 %; most of the papers were published in Public Health journals (average impact factor: 3.007). Non universitary affiliation had resulted in a lower probability of publication, while some of the Conference topics had predisposed the studies to an increased likelihood of publication as well as poster form presentation.ConclusionsThe method presented in this study provides a good framework for the evaluation of the scientific evidence. The findings achieved should be taken into consideration by the Scientific Societies during the contributions selection phase, with the aim of achieving a continuous improvement of work quality. In the future, it would be interesting to survey the abstract authors to identify reasons for unpublished data.

The Role of Conferences on the Pathway to Academic Impact

“…Our findings give scientific corroboration to the common perception among research funders and institutions that conferences play a significant role in disseminating and improving academic work. These results are consistent with correlations found in previous empirical work (Winnik et al, 2012, Castaldi et al, 2015, and Chai and Freeman, 2017, but-to the best of our knowledge-this study is the first to have used quasi-experimental evidence to estimate the benefits of conferences and in this sense is wholly novel within the existing literature. 4 More broadly, we contribute to a growing body of work that investigates the impacts of face-to-face interactions and the determinants of knowledge flow.…”

“…See Merton (1968), Salganik et al (2006), Azoulay et al (2013. 4 Winnik et al (2012) and Castaldi et al (2015) compare "accepted" vs. "rejected" papers, so a selection effect (the extent to which the conference committee selects for papers that are likely to have greater impact) is likely to be a confounder to any conference effect. Chai and Freeman (2017) conduct a more controlled analysis, by comparing patterns of collaboration and citations among attendees of the Gordon Research Conferences with patterns among a matched group of non-conference attendees, and instrumenting conference attendance by individuals' distance to the conference.…”

Publication rate of abstracts presented at Japan Geriatrics Society Annual Meetings (2011–2012): a retrospective observational study

“…Consistent with a recent study [ 14 ], our study showed that a larger sample size (n ≥ 100) was significantly associated with more frequent publication. However, given that prior studies have shown conflicting results for the effect of sample size on the likelihood of publication [ 1 , 4 , 20 ], further studies are needed to evaluate this association.…”

Analysis of conference abstract-to-publication rate in UK orthopaedic research

“…However, our results on research affiliated institutions are not consistent with other studies. Castaldi et al 19 concluded first authors affiliated with university hospitals were more likely to achieve FTP than non-university hospitals (P=0.001). Winnik et al 25 also identified a significant association with university hospital affiliated institutions and the likelihood of FTP (OR=1.53; P=0.03).…”