A quantitative analysis of medical publications from Arab countries

OBJECTIVE: To perform geographical analysis of the number of biomedical publications produced in 20 Arab countries over a 15-year period from 1987 to 2001 and to compare publication rates normalized by country population, school enrolment, adult illiteracy, and gross domestic product (GDP).

METHODS: This study was carried out at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates. A search of the Medline database for publications in which the first author of original articles is affiliated with an institution located in the Arab World was performed. Data collection, extraction, and validation was performed.

RESULTS: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt had the highest number of publications together accounting for 58.4% of the Arab World's publications. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had the highest number when normalizing by population with 6.57/100,000 for Kuwait and 2.62/100,000 for UAE. Normalizing by the GDP indicator, Jordan had the highest number of publications with 11.2 per one billion average yearly GDP followed by Lebanon with 10.3 per one billion average yearly GDP.

CONCLUSION: Normalizing publications by different indicators is important as results may vary when using different normalizing indicators or no normalization at all.