Regional inequality in radiology research output in the UK: a 5-year bibliometric study

The objective of this study was to describe the patterns of peer-reviewed general radiology publication rates with reference to deaneries in the UK. This was a retrospective bibliometric analysis of publications in the six highest cited general radiology journals. Publications were identified using a manual search in PubMed between 2005 and 2009. Publications originating from UK radiology departments were identified and subcategorised into primary institution of origin, deanery and publication type. The total number of radiology trainees in each deanery was obtained from the General Medical Council. 913 publications were included in the study. Original papers constituted 48.7% (n=445), review articles 30.3% (n=277) and case reports 17.4% (n=159). The median number of publications in each deanery was 27 [interquartile range (IQR) 11-60], and the median number of publications per trainee was 0.49 (IQR 0.31-0.88). The largest proportion of publications came from the London deanery (n=354, 38.8%), followed by Eastern 86 (9.4%), Oxford and Yorkshire 70 (7.7% each). Relative to the number of trainees within each deanery, Oxford had the highest number of publications per trainee (1.78), followed by East Midlands (1.5), London (1.25) and Eastern (0.99). There was a significantly higher publication rate for those deaneries with academic radiologists (p<0.0001). There is a marked difference in the volume of published work in the general radiology literature among UK deaneries, even accounting for differences in the number of trainees. This probably means that opportunities for training in research are similarly non-uniform.