Linguistic underrepresentation in medical publishing: perspectives around the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors

  • Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Rayas Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Medicine and Health Sciences Monterrey, Mexico
  • Marcela Mendoza-Sigala Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Medicine and Health Sciences Monterrey, Mexico https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7737-8330

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59706/aebmedicine.v1i1.7691

Keywords:

COVID-19, languages, underrepresentation, medical publishing

Abstract

COVID-19 and the “new normal” have come here to stay. What initially emerged as a local outbreak transitioned into a global pandemic, and has caused more than 6 million deaths.2 The sudden onset of the SARS-CoV-2 crisis challenged health care systems in terms of both patient overflow and information paucity. As the new infectious agent was previously unknown, evidence was scarce and highly controversial. Nonetheless, after the novel coronavirus continued spreading, medical literature became available to the point that more than 72,000 articles were published in PubMed in 2020 (Figure 1). This number is around 80 times greater than the previous year.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Di Bitetti MS, Ferreras JA. Publish (in English) or perish: The effect on citation rate of using languages other than English in scientific publications. Ambio 2017;46(1):121–7. Doi: 10.1007/s13280-016-0820-7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0820-7

Johns Hopkins University. COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). COVID-19 Map - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html. 28/04/2023.

Ethnologue : Languages of the World. Dallas, Texas :SIL International, 2023.

Hamel RE. The dominance of English in the international scientific periodical literature and the future of language use in science. AILA 2007;20:53–71. Doi: 10.1075/aila.20.06ham. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.20.06ham

De Swaan, A. 1993. The emergent world language system: An introduction. International Political Science Review 14(3): 219–26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/019251219301400301

De Swaan, A. 2001. Words of the World. The Global Language System. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Ramírez-Castañeda V. Disadvantages in preparing and publishing scientific papers caused by the dominance of the English language in science: The case of Colombian researchers in biological sciences. PLoS ONE 2020;15(9):1–15. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238372. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238372

Bojo Canales C, Fraga Medín C, Hernández Villegas S, Primo Peña E. SciELO: un proyecto cooperativo para la difusión de la ciencia. Rev esp sanid penit 2009;11(2). Doi: 10.4321/S1575-06202009000200004. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4321/S1575-06202009000200004

Linguistic underrepresentation in medical publishing

Downloads

Published

2023-04-28

How to Cite

Gonzalez-Rayas, J. M., & Mendoza-Sigala, M. (2023). Linguistic underrepresentation in medical publishing: perspectives around the COVID-19 pandemic. Archives of Evidence-Based Medicine, 1(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.59706/aebmedicine.v1i1.7691

Issue

Section

Articles

Plaudit