Trends in MSF research publications

Louise
1 Bishop ,

David

2 Bridgman-Packer ,

Patricia

2 Kahn ,

Sarah

1 Venis

1Mdecins

Sans Frontires (MSF), London, UK;

2MSF,

New York, USA

Limitations
Some publications by MSF authors might have been missed; the 2012 data are more accurate and complete than the entire dataset of MSF articles as the algorithm used to identify MSF papers has improved over time. The historical data rely on author keywords; while this may reduce systematic bias there is variation between authors. Additionally, each paper typically has many keywords, some of which may only relate in a minor way to the content.
Research 61%

Introduction
MSF has a long history of publishing research carried out in its programmes around the world. However there has been no pan-organisational analysis of trends over time in the published outputs of MSF research. This analysis seeks to: Quantify and summarise research publications to provide an historical overview of trends in published MSF research Provide an in-depth view of medical publishing activity in 2012

Results: historical data

The field research website lists 1034 publications between 1988 and 2012. Increasing numbers of articles are being published in open access journals. HIV and tuberculosis (TB) are the most common topics in recent years. Fewer than 2% of articles were published in a language other than English.
Number of MSF publications by year archived on the field research website
140 number of publications 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Results: 2012 analysis

In 2012, MSF published 147 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Publication topics and article types:
Disease # articles HIV/AIDS (no TB) 40 Tuberculosis (no HIV) 39 HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis 10 Malnutrition 10 Malaria 6 Non-Communicable Disease 6 Surgery/Trauma 6 Cholera 5 Visceral Leishmaniasis 5 Infections, Viral 4 Mental Health 4 Infections, Other 3 Sleeping Sickness 3 Diarrheal Diseases (non-Cholera) 1 Meningitis 1 Buruli Ulcer 0 Chagas 0 Measles 0 % total 28% 27% 7% 7% 4% 4% 4% 3% 3% 3% 3% 2% 2% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0%

n=147

Commentary 24% Metaanalysis, 6% Review, 5% Short report, 4%

Conclusions
There has been more than a 10-fold increase in MSFs peer-reviewed publications over the past twenty years. Operational areas other than HIV/TB account for a substantial portion of MSFs medical humanitarian programmes but are under-represented in publications. The field research website is a useful repository that makes MSF research freely available and provides a record of MSF publications over time. However, additional tools and resources are needed to provide an in-depth view of MSF research activity. As there is no centralized process for MSF publications, identifying MSF articles in medical literature requires significant effort. Collecting additional information such as country and type of publication, and assigning a topic from a fixed list, as in the 2012 analysis, provides useful and detailed information about the extent of MSF research, but is time-intensive. While publication in Hybrid journals is common, MSF rarely pays to make these articles open access. In certain cases the field research database can nevertheless obtain permission from publishers to archive these articles, but this is only a partial replacement for open access: authors lack copyright and articles receive less exposure than if they are freely available from journals. Trends in the frequency of publication topics seem to mirror rises and falls in MSF advocacy priorities in some topics such as malaria, HIV and TB but not in others. This analysis shows publication trends but additional tools and approaches are needed to assess the impact of MSF publications, such as whether they led to changes in treatment protocols or policy.

Methods
Historical data The total number of papers published each year was extracted from MSFs field research website1, which provides free access to the full text of published MSF articles. All peer-reviewed publications categorised as published research and commentary were included (research articles, reviews, editorials, letters). Information on these papers was exported using the bibtex format to Mendeley2, a free online reference manager. This links the reference with the online article, and automatically extracts authors keywords. However, 3% of papers did not transfer, and 15% of papers did not have any keywords. This may relate to article type (e.g. correspondence is not usually assigned keywords), or journal (e.g. there were no keywords from papers published in Conflict and Health). In analysis of trends in open versus closed access publication, journals were classified according to their access policy in 2012 since data were not available on earlier policies. 2012 data

2012 publications represented a diverse mix of original research, meta-analysis, review articles, and short reports. HIV/AIDS and TB accounted for the majority of publications (62%), as in past years. Journal Accessibility: Journals in which MSF published most frequently in 2012
year of publication

Trends in journal of publication, by type of access

60 number of publications 50 40 30 20 10
Other, 4%

PLoS One (25 articles) open access Public Health Action (13) open access Tropical Medicine & International Health (12) hybrid PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (7) open access International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (7) free after 6 months

n=147

Hybrid journals* 31%

Full open access 54%

*Hybrid journals offer authors open access (OA) for a fee (similar to full OA journals, although often more expensive). Examples: Tropical Medicine & International Health, AIDS, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Free after 6 months, 5% No Free Access, 6%

open

hybrid

free after six months

no free access

other

Publications by country: Trends in frequency of seven author keywords: MSF publications 2000-2012
40

80 articles (54%) were published in exclusively OA journals. Another 45 articles (31%) were in hybrid journals; authors chose OA for only 5 of these 45 articles.

number

MSF publications were collected in an internal database using Microsoft Access 2007. Articles were identified through Google Scholar, PubMed and internal communications in MSF. Articles with an MSF-affiliated author and published in electronically-available, peer-reviewed journals were included. Country and topic keywords were assigned from a controlled vocabulary list. Analysis was done in Microsoft Excel 2007.

HIV (not TB) tuberculosis (not HIV) tuberculosis and HIV mental health nutrition visceral leishmaniasis malaria

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

MSF publications incorporated data from 54 countries. 75% of data sets or country mentions were from Sub-Saharan Africa.

References
1

Meta-analyses and review articles were not included in this analysis. All research conducted in Sudan either took place in northern Sudan or was completed prior to South Sudans independence.

http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/;

2 http://www.mendeley.com/