The international distribution of biomedical publications

An investigation of the U.S. role in international biomedical publication is reported, based on counts of articles, notes and reviews in 975 biomedical journals covered by the Science Citation Index in 1973. U.S. scientists authored 42% of these biomedical papers, the U.K. 10%, West Germany and France 7% and 6%, and the U.S.S.R. 4%, a sharp change from earlier in this century when Germany and France had much more prominent roles. Overall, 94% of the papers are from OECD and Eastern European countries; only 4% are from underdeveloped regions. U.S. and U.K. papers are far more heavily cited than are papers from other countries; U.S.S.R. papers are particularly under-cited. Biomedical publication rates are shown to be highly correlated (r = 0.9) with both national wealth (GNP) and national affluence (GNP/capita). National publication rates also correlate with Nobel Prize recipients. - Frame, J. D., and F. Narin. The international distribution of biomedical publications.