‘Authorship parasitism’ informed by neo-colonial science?

To end ‘author parasitism’, which is the exclusion of local authors in studies conducted in Africa, investigators and institutions in high-income countries, as well as funding agencies and journals, should promote research from Sub-Saharan Africa, including its publication, in a collaborative and equitable manner, a new study has said.

The study, ‘Where there is no local author: a network bibliometric analysis of authorship parasitism among research conducted in sub-Saharan Africa’, published in BMJ Global Health, on 27 October 2021, found that, “authorship parasitism in studies conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa occurred in approximately one in seven articles”, adding that, “several high-income countries were most involved in such work conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa”.

Many articles included only a moderate proportion of authors from the study country, the authors said.

The authors said that, given the recent and growing recognition of the perils of imbalanced research collaborations, future studies are merited to evaluate changes in the prevalence, location and associated factors in authorship parasitism.

A bibliometric review of articles from January 2014 to December 2018 reporting research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, and indexed in PubMed, was used by the researchers to investigate how author affiliations were assigned to countries based on regular expression algorithms.

Choropleth maps and network diagrams – which use colour or patterned displays to present statistical data across geographical areas – were created to determine where authorship parasitism occurred, and multivariable logistic regression was used to determine associated factors.

The researchers found that, “of 32,061 articles, 14.8% (n=4,754) demonstrated authorship parasitism, which was most common among studies from Somalia (n=175/233, 75.1%) and São Tomé and Príncipe (n=20/28, 71.4%).

“Authors affiliated with United States and United Kingdom institutions were most involved in articles exhibiting authorship parasitism.”

Authorship parasitism was more common in articles: published in North American journals than in Sub-Saharan African journals, reporting work from multiple Sub-Saharan African countries compared with work from upper-middle income sub-Saharan African countries, with less than five authors than those with more than 10 authors, and was less common in articles published in French than those in English, the authors said.

The researchers found that “a significant proportion of articles also had few authors affiliated with the study country, regardless of the number of authors”. Of 16,187 articles with 5-10 authors, local authors comprised less than 25% of authors in 4,999 (30.9%) articles.

Of 3,901 articles with 11-15 authors, local authors comprised less than 25% of authors in 1,115 (28.6%) articles.

In 940 articles with 16-20 authors, local authors comprised less than 25% of authors in 349 (37.1%) articles.

And in 560 articles with more than 20 authors, local authors comprised less than 25% of authors in 231 (41.2%) articles.

Inequity despite calls to decolonise

They said their findings and others “suggest such authorship inequities may be more pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa and despite multiple calls to ‘decolonise global health’, to build research capacity in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and to avoid exploitative research practices in lower- and middle-income countries, prior studies indicate that authorship parasitism, defined as articles with ‘no listed authors from the LMIC in which a study is conducted’ occurs in as much as 4%-13% of articles reporting research conducted in the African continent”.

In addition, they said, “authorship parasitism can damage partnerships between low- and medium- and higher-income country investigators while also perpetuating gaps in power and influence”, adding that, “publishing papers without full representation of the personnel who meet authorship criteria is against the recommendation of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors”.

The authors said prior studies suggest that “authorship parasitism is common when investigators from the US, UK and Canada are involved, and that ‘neo-colonial science’ may be to blame for such inequitable practices”.

They, however, said that “these studies have not elucidated whether other factors, such as journal region, article language, funding source and number of authors are associated with authorship parasitism”, pointing out that, “understanding such factors is needed to identify, and thereby eliminate, this extractive practice.

“Our objective was to determine the prevalence, location, contributing investigators and factors associated with authorship parasitism among articles reporting research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Authorship parasitism occurred more commonly in studies conducted in multiple Sub-Saharan African countries and in low-income countries than in upper-middle-income Sub-Saharan African countries.

“Though imbalance in authorship in research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa is but ‘the tip of the iceberg’ in inequities in academic global health, it is certainly a manifestation.

“Understanding the countries, contributing investigators’ countries and associated factors may help inform policies and interventions to reduce authorship parasitism in the future,” the authors added.