HIV AIDS - Following the research dollars
Early in 2008 Thomson Reuters received an inquiry from Science magazine's Jon Cohen, who specializes in covering AIDS/HIV research. In preparation for a feature story on the upcoming annual international conference, he requested a literature review and analysis of AIDS/HIV research during the last decade.
The 25 July 2008 issue of Science followed the HIV/AIDS money trail, reporting on how billions of HIV/AIDS research dollars have been distributed over the past 10 years, and what they have accomplished. Thomson Reuters contributed to this article by supplying insight into 123,752 HIV/AIDS-related papers and their citations.
To meet Cohen's request for a literature review and analysis of AIDS/HIV research during the last decade, we worked closely with him to design an extraction profile that was run against all indexed items for 1998 to 2007 (publication years). We matched this profile to title words, abstract words, author-supplied keywords and Thomson Reuters keywords plus – retrieving over 123,000 articles. We then loaded the bibliographic and citation count data into xite 7.1. This is a Thomson Reuters software application that enables users to analyze a large group of papers and to produce listings based on output and citation impact in regard to individual authors, institutions, journals, and nations.
Cohen used the database to identify influential authors, institutions, and nations. He matched these results with the author funding. These data helped him obtain a global view of AIDS/HIV research impact over the last decade, supplementing his own intimate knowledge of the field and its key players. The results he generated helped provide a quantitative, objective framework for his report. This is not the first time that Cohen, as well as many other journalists on the science and technology beat, has worked with us to obtain research insight.
In his six month study, Cohen found that the billions of research dollars have been concentrated in a few countries (often for legitimate reasons) but not necessarily in those countries with the worst epidemics. The number of people in need of anti-HIV drugs continues to climb, raising questions about whether resources can keep up with future demands.
Read the full article from Science – with accompanying podcasts and interviews (registration required)
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Read the full article from Science – with accompanying podcasts and interviews (registration required)
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