Arunachalam & Subbhiah, Tuberculosis research in India and China: From bibliometrics to research policy

[Gretchen Whitney]

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Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 09:36:57 +0530
From: Gunasekaran Subbiah <Guna at mssrf.res.in>

For copies of the article  contact the journal[currsci at ias.ernet.in] or
see the web site at
 http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/contents.htm
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Tuberculosis research in India and China: From bibliometrics to research
policy
Subbiah Arunachalam and Subbiah Gunasekaran
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 8, 25 APRIL 2002,   Page 933-947

Abstract

India and China lead the world in the incidence of tuberculosis (TB),
accounting for 23% and 17% respectively, of the global burden of the disease
and hold the 15th and the 18th positions in terms of incidence per 100,000
population. But India accounts for only about 5-6% of the world's research
output in this area and China a paltry 1% as seen from papers indexed in
three international databases, viz. PubMed, Science Citation Index and
Biochemistry and Biophysics Citation Index over the ten-year period
1990-1999. Thus there is a tremendous mismatch between the share of the
burden of the disease and share of research efforts. Is such mismatch
acceptable? It raises the question 'should resource-poor countries invest in
research or should they depend on research performed elsewhere and invest
their meagre resources predominantly in health-care measures?' We argue that
both India and China should invest much more in research than they do. We
have also mapped TB research in the two countries and identified
institutions and cities active in research, journals used to publish the
findings, use of high impact journals, impact of their research as seen from
citations received and extent of international collaboration. Although China
performs much less research than India and its work is quoted much less
often, it seems to have done far better than India in health-care delivery
in TB. Perhaps the Chinese are better able to translate know-how into do-how
than the Indians.


CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 8, 25 APRIL 2002,   Page 933-947
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