ArticleAfrican journal of emergency medicine : Revue africaine de la medecine d'urgence2026
Authorship and citation inequities in high-impact emergency medicine journals: a bibliometric analysis.
Article in African journal of emergency medicine : Revue africaine de la medecine d'urgence, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Introduction: Emergency medicine (EM) is a global discipline; however, marked inequities in authorship representation persist. Disparities between high-income countries (HICs) and lower-and middle-income countries (LMICs) may influence research visibility, access to funding, and scholarly impact. Using recent data, we examined authorship leadership, funding, and citation patterns across national income groups in high-impact EM journals. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional bibliometric analysis of articles published between 2020 and 2024 in the 20 highest-ranked EM journals according to Google Scholar Metrics. Bibliographic records were retrieved from PubMed and Web of Science, excluding publication types not considered citable scholarly outputs. Country income classification followed the World Bank 2025 schema based on first-author affiliation. Descriptive statistics and χ² tests assessed distributions across income groups. Multivariable logistic regression identified predictors of LMIC first authorship and funding, while linear regression assessed annual citation counts adjusted for study characteristics. Results: Among 23,379 eligible articles, first authors were predominantly affiliated with HICs (81.6%), followed by upper-middle-income (10.8%), lower-middle-income (7.3%), and low-income (0.3%) countries. LMIC representation did not increase over time. Larger author teams were inversely associated with LMIC first authorship ( Discussion: High-impact EM research remains dominated by HIC institutions, with persistent inequities in authorship leadership, funding, and citation visibility. These findings suggest that structural barriers to research leadership and publication may contribute to the observed disparities, rather than differences in scholarly relevance once studies are published. Strengthening LMIC research capacity and promoting equitable collaborations and inclusive publishing policies are essential for a more representative global EM research ecosystem.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.