Discussion
Bibliometric science is ever growing and establishing itself as an
accurate way of estimating and portraying both scholar productivity for
itself, assessing different variables connected to academic productivity
or showing non-partial and affective way of critiquing one’s scientific
output’s quality and quantity.
As ORL-HNS is a field of medicine that interphases with numerous other
medical disciplines, advancements in ORL-HNS may have an effect in
Oncology, Neurology, Endocrinology, Maxillofacial surgery and even
Paediatrics. Therefore, many patients and medical teams can profit from
research in this medical field. With a constant need in new research and
development in the field of ORL-HNS, the data portrayed in this study
shed an important light on the connection of economic investment in
research and research output.
In this current study, we have examined the association between economic
and bibliometric indicators in ORL-NHS scholar productivity of the
different OECD countries and examined the association between said
indicators. As far as we know, this is the most updated and broad study
in ORL-HNS scientometrics to date.
As we’ve compared the various OCED countries regions there seemed to by
a constant different between several bibliometric indices in Eastern
Europe and almost all other region for the exception of Latin America.
Moreover, a consistent difference was evident in H index, which is, as
stated above considered to be the gold standard of scientometrics. This
tendency is further fortified by the significant difference seen in
native English versus non-native English-speaking countries, with an
overall difference in both H index and number of citations. this leaning
was shown in the past, though not as significantly in other medical
fields by our group. These said differences may be attributed to both
economic investments and to the fact that the leading language in global
academics is in fact English, which may cause a publication barrier for
non-native academics.
When valuating said bibliometric data against economic parameters, a
strong correlation is seen between health expenditure as calculated for
2018 as percentage of the GDP and H index, a moderate correlation is
seen between health expenditure and all other bibliometric data as well
as between the GERD and all bibliometric parameters. Furthermore, we can
state that the H index, our gold standard for scientometrics data as
mentions previously, is moderately to strongly connected to any of the
economic indicators examined in our study. When referring to GDP per
capita, the indicator which is, out of our economic parameters, least
directly linked to medical investment is where whiteness the weakest
correlations with only two parameters with a significant link; citations
(weak correlation) and H index (a moderate correlation).
There are several drawbacks to our study, one being the fact that the
number of publications is not adjusted to the population size or number
of ORL-NHS surgeons per country, data that may have significance when
assessing absolute bibliometric parameters such as the number of
publications or total citations. Furthermore, when evaluating large
countries such as the United States there is no state-to-state
breakdown, and the variations between states may be of scientific
importance. Nonetheless, our comparison does allow to review the United
States contribution as a whole, and its’ impact on global research, and
allows to assess each country’s contribution regardless to its’ size.
Another limitation is the use of solemnly open sources, which are not
always updated at the time of data collection (GDP per capita, 2018;
health expenditure, 2018; GERD, latest updated). However, we believe
that the still provide a satisfactorily accurate reflection of each of
the OECD countries economic averages and are sufficient to prove the
conclusions conducted in this article. Another drawback of the study is
that it differs only to the OECD countries, and the conclusions made in
it may not be generalised to the rest of the worlds’ countries. In spite
of this, using only OECD countries provided us with a precise data
collection and made its results more valid.
As bibliometrics is crucial to accurately demonstrating scholar
productivity, the results of our study enhance the importance of health
expenditure and investment in science as a catalysator for academic
advancement in the field of ORL-HNS, more so than general economic
variables as is the GDP per capita. This assumption, mainly of health
expenditure, was proven in the past in different medical fields such as
Cardiology and Rheumatology. We assume that in wealthy healthcare
systems, affluent with manpower and advanced infrastructure, there is
more time and means for conducting research. In addition, one can argue
that as clinical research is integrated with the daily medical practice,
investment in health indirectly results in investment in health
academics.