Medical research versus disease burden in Africa

Confraria, Hugo; Wang, Lili

doi:10.1016/j.respol.2019.103916

Cited by 31 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(41 reference statements)

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“…To correct for differences in population size, we standardize the results as DALYs per 1000 capita. In addition, we adopt "disease burden specialization index (SI)" from Confraria and Wang's (30) to reflect "relative level of burden formulation in terms of the world-average level", which is also free from the impact of population. This index can be expressed as:…”

Section: Burden Of Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most common among these is research output, which is what we have used for this study. Due to the heterogeneous nature, it is important to focus on particular region(s) and/or disease(s), such as medical research in Africa (30), India (29) or Palestine (34), or specific chronic respiratory diseases in Europe (35), diabetes in five small countries in Europe (36), neglected tropical diseases in Brazil (37) or cancer research in 29 countries (24) or just in China (25). At the global level, Yegros-Yegros et al (38) use research output indexed by MEDLINE and WHO data from the Global Burden of Disease in 2010 to explore the relationships between research effort and health needs for 134 diseases.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How does academia respond to the burden of infectious and parasitic disease?

Zhao¹,

Wang²,

Zhang³

2021

Preprint

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Background: Academic research is one of the main avenues through which humans can fight the threat of infectious diseases. However, there has been concerns regarding whether academic system has provided sufficient efforts to fight infectious diseases we potentially face. Answering these questions could contribute to evidence-based recommendations for setting research priorities and third-mission policies. Methods: With a focus on one of the most common categories of communicable diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases (IPDs), we searched Web of Science for articles and reviews relevant to IPDs published during 2000-2019 and acquired WHO data of disease burden in corresponding years. The academic response patterns were explored by IPD subcategory, and by human development level (an index established by the UN). We in particular conduct the analysis to gain insight on the dynamic relationship between disease burden and research effort on IPD, scientific efforts contributed by countries with different development levels, and the variation trends in international joint efforts. Results: The greatest burden of IPD disease is clustered in the developing regions of Africa, but has received academic response from both developed and developing countries. Highly developed countries dominate the ranks of academic research in this area, yet there is also a clear increase of research efforts from the countries most affected, despite their low human development scale. In fact, the overall analysis reveals an improved capability of addressing local problems from African regions. In terms of international collaboration, highly developed countries, such as the US and UK, have commonly collaborated with needy regions, whereas prolific but developing nations, like China, have not. Conclusions: From a global perspective, academia has positively responded to health need caused by IPD. Although the relevant research output is primarily contributed by the highly developed countries, the concentrated efforts from the undeveloped regions to ease their local burdens can be clearly observed. Our findings also indicate the tendency on focusing more on local health needs for both developed and undeveloped regions. The insights revealed in this study should benefit a more informed and systemic plan of research priorities.

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Section: Burden Of Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does academia respond to the burden of infectious and parasitic disease?

Zhao¹,

Wang²,

Zhang³

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…Although at national level there seems to be some balance in priorities, global imbalances persist because most research is done in high-income countries. Confraria and Wang (2020) find that sub-Saharan African research capacity, although being significantly smaller when compared with other regions, organized its priorities according to their disease burden, even when collaborating internationally. Thus, supporting local research systems, could be a route to reduce global health inequality.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 92%

Exploring the Links Between Research Demand and Supply: The Case of Chagas

Arza

Colonna

2021

SSRN Journal

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This paper contributes to the literature assessing how scientific research can improve its contribution societal needs. Our context of analysis is scientific research on the socio-environmental problems associated to Chagas, a neglected tropical disease. We use mixed methods in our approach. We identify societal needs and perceived demand for Chagas research based on secondary evidence and interviews with key informants in Argentina, while research supply is identified through a bibliometric analysis on research production worldwide and in Argentina since the 1990s. We find three areas of research demands: i) vector control, ii) early diagnosis and reduction in congenital transmission and iii) social science research to improve policy outcomes. We identify that research supply in these three areas has evolved differently and is steered by diverse factors. While vector control seems to be attended by local research systems, severe deficits turn up in the social sciences both locally and globally. There has been increasing attention worldwide in diagnosis and congenital transmission, with international cooperation as an important driver, although Argentinean research seems not to be intensively participating in these networks. We claim that different policy pathways derive from an analysis that takes into consideration perceived demand and supply of research in different areas.

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“…The fact that Africa has weak research systems and low research productivity, even in critical areas relevant to its development, has been the subject of several studies ( Confraria and Wang, 2020 ; Nakanjako et al, 2017 ; Wolhuter, 2019 ). The data on Africa's research response to COVID-19 presented in Fig.…”

Section: Why Is Africa's Research Response To Covid-19 Subdued?mentioning

confidence: 99%