AUTHOR=Perryman Adrianna , Gebretekle Gebremedhin Beedemariam , Ogunbameru Adeteju , Bielecki Joanna M. , Sander Beate
TITLE=A Protocol for a Scoping Review Comparative Bibliometric Analysis of Infectious Disease Research in Africa
JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health
VOLUME=9
YEAR=2022
URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.802428
DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2021.802428
ISSN=2296-2565
ABSTRACT=Introduction: Evidence on authorship trends of health research conducted about or in Africa shows that there is a lack of local researchers in the first and last authorship positions, with high income country collaborations taking up these positions. The differences in authorship calls into question power imbalances in global health research and who benefits from the production of new discoveries and innovations. Health studies may further go on to inform policy and clinical practice within the region having an impact on public health. This paper aims to compare the differences in authorship between COVID-19 and relevant infectious diseases in Africa.
Materials and Methods: We will conduct a bibliometric analysis comparing authorship for COVID-19 research during a public health emergency with authorship for four other infectious diseases of relevance to Africa namely: Ebola, Zika Virus (ZIKV), Tuberculosis (TB) and Influenza. Our scoping review will follow the framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley and reviewed by Levac et al. We will search MEDLINE (Ovid), African Index Medicus (AIM), Eastern Mediterranean Region (IMEMR) Index Medicus, Embase (Ovid), and Web of Science (Clarivate). We will compare the different trends of disease research between the selected diseases. This study is registered with OSF registries and is licensed with the Academic Free License version 3.0. The open science registration number is 10.17605/OSF.IO/5ZPGN.