Arunachalam & Gunasekaran, Diabetes research in India and China today

[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 articles contact the journal[currsci at ias.ernet.in] or
see the
website: http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/contents.htm
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Diabetes research in India and China today: From literature-based mapping to
health-care policy
Subbiah Arunachalam* and Subbiah Gunasekaran
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 9, 10 MAY 2002,    Page 1086-1097.

Abstract

We have mapped and evaluated diabetes research in India and China, based on
papers published during 1990-1999 and indexed in PubMed, Science Citation
Index (SCI) and Biochemistry and Biophysics Citation Index (BBCI) and
citations to each one of these papers up to 2000. We have identified
institutions carrying out diabetes research, journals used to publish the
results, subfields in which the two countries have published often, and the
impact of the work as seen from actual citations to the papers. We have also
assessed the extent of international collaboration in diabetes research in
these two countries, based on papers indexed in SCI and BBCI. There is an
enormous mismatch between the disease burden and the share of research
performed in both countries. Although together these two countries account
for 26% of the prevalence of diabetes, they contribute less than 2% of the
world's research. We argue that both India and China need to (i) strengthen
their research capabilities in this area, (ii) increase investment in
health-care research considerably, (iii) facilitate substantive
international collaboration in research, and (iv) support cross-disciplinary
research between basic life sciences researchers and medical researchers. As
data such as those presented here should form the basis of health policy,
India and China should encourage evaluation of research.


CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 9, 10 MAY 2002,    Page 1086-1097.
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