Importance It is important to monitor changes in the biomedical literature and its funding. China has surpassed the US in publications and, in some analyses, in some impact indicators. Objective To evaluate changes over time in the profiles of the most highly cited biomedical publications. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study assessed 100 top-cited biomedical articles (based on Scopus) published in each of 3 time periods (2003-2004, 2013-2014, and 2023-2024) for corresponding authors, types of publications represented, and funding sources, with an emphasis on funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has been traditionally considered the major funder of biomedical research. Main Outcomes and Measures The main outcomes of interest are descriptive and include provenance (country of corresponding author), type of publication, type of funding, overall NIH funding, and NIH funding as the sole funding source. Results Among 100 top-cited biomedical publications, corresponding authors from the US decreased over time (59 of 100 articles in 2003-2004, 58 of 100 in 2013-2014, 45 of 100 in 2023-2024). Corresponding authors from China represented 0 top-cited publications in 2003-2004, 1 in 2013-2014, and 4 in 2023-2024. There was an increase in consensus articles (10 in 2003-2004 vs 24 in 2023-2024) and in reference statistics articles (1 in 2003-2004, 10 in 2013-2014, and 11 in 2023-2024). Reviews remained common among top-cited articles, but almost always were nonsystematic. NIH funding was listed in 45 publications in 2003-2004, 50 in 2013-2014, and 23 in 2023-2024. All other countries combined surpassed US public funding in 2023-2024. Funding by NIH in combination with other funders increased from 13 articles in 2003-2204 to 22 and 21, respectively, in 2013-2014 and 2023-2024, but funding by NIH alone decreased in the last decade (32 of 100 in 2002-2003, 28 of 100 in 2013-2014, and 2 of 100 in 2023-2024). More commonly listed funding from nonprofit organizations, societies, and institutions complemented the NIH funding decline. The first authors of 7 of 45 and the corresponding authors of 14 of 45 top-cited US-based articles of 2023-2024 were listed as leaders of active NIH grants in RePORTER as of February 2025. Citation gaming became more obvious in 2023-2024 with the advent of some atypical highly cited papers and a larger share of nonsystematic reviews and consensus documents. Conclusions and Relevance Results of this study suggest that, overall, the US remains a world leader regarding the most highly cited biomedical research and NIH funding retains a substantial presence among top-cited articles. However, NIH influence had decreased overall, and top-cited articles funded exclusively by NIH have almost disappeared. Strengthening public funding is essential to secure research that serves the common good.
Most published studies on the impact of financial crisis on health in Europe had a substantial risk of bias; therefore, results need to be cautiously interpreted. Overall, the financial crisis in Europe seemed to have had heterogeneous effects on health outcomes, with the evidence being most consistent for suicides and mental health. There is a need for better empirical studies, especially those focused on identifying mechanisms that can mitigate the adverse effects of the crisis.
Between-study heterogeneity is useful to document in the synthesis of data from GWA investigations and can offer valuable insights for further clarification of gene-disease associations.
Appraisal of the scientific impact of researchers, teams and institutions with productivity and citation metrics has major repercussions. Funding and promotion of individuals and survival of teams and institutions depend on publications and citations. In this competitive environment, the number of authors per paper is increasing and apparently some co-authors don't satisfy authorship criteria. Listing of individual contributions is still sporadic and also open to manipulation. Metrics are needed to measure the networking intensity for a single scientist or group of scientists accounting for patterns of co-authorship. Here, I define I(1) for a single scientist as the number of authors who appear in at least I(1) papers of the specific scientist. For a group of scientists or institution, I(n) is defined as the number of authors who appear in at least I(n) papers that bear the affiliation of the group or institution. I(1) depends on the number of papers authored N(p). The power exponent R of the relationship between I(1) and N(p) categorizes scientists as solitary (R>2.5), nuclear (R = 2.25-2.5), networked (R = 2-2.25), extensively networked (R = 1.75-2) or collaborators (R<1.75). R may be used to adjust for co-authorship networking the citation impact of a scientist. I(n) similarly provides a simple measure of the effective networking size to adjust the citation impact of groups or institutions. Empirical data are provided for single scientists and institutions for the proposed metrics. Cautious adoption of adjustments for co-authorship and networking in scientific appraisals may offer incentives for more accountable co-authorship behaviour in published articles.
Abstract We have empirically assessed the distribution of published effect sizes and estimated power by extracting more than 100,000 statistical records from about 10,000 cognitive neuroscience and psychology papers published during the past 5 years. The reported median effect size was d=0.93 (inter-quartile range: 0.64-1.46) for nominally statistically significant results and d=0.24 (0.11-0.42) for non-significant results. Median power to detect small, medium and large effects was 0.12, 0.44 and 0.73, reflecting no improvement through the past half-century. Power was lowest for cognitive neuroscience journals. 14% of papers reported some statistically significant results, although the respective F statistic and degrees of freedom proved that these were non-significant; p value errors positively correlated with journal impact factors. False report probability is likely to exceed 50% for the whole literature. In light of our findings the recently reported low replication success in psychology is realistic and worse performance may be expected for cognitive neuroscience.
Prepandemic samples from Africa show high levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity. At the country level, cross-reactivity tracks especially with malaria prevalence.
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Small trials published in the most prestigious journals show more favourable effects for experimental interventions, and this is most prominent for early-published trials in such journals. No effect inflation is seen for large trials.