Comparing countries share in 37 international health journals (2008)

Background: Several researches have been conducted regarding the inequity in scientific production between the developed and developing countries. A variety of several reasons have been proposed to justify this gap among those the most important one is the inadequate development of research capabilities and infrastructures. One of these capabilities is associated with the publication of research journals or contribution to their publication as a member of editorial board. Objective: This study was aimed to explore the share of different countries in editorial board of international public health journals in access to these opportunities for capability development as well as having an impact on the process of decision making regarding the publication of scientific papers. Methods: This paper reports a quantitative research conducted on 37 English language international journals associated with different fields of public health in 2008. A purposeful sampling method was implemented. Data were analyzed using the Excel discipline analytic software. Findings: Our data showed that there is a significant inequality between different countries in terms of contributing to international public health journals. Only 52 countries, half of which known as developed countries, were demonstrated to have the opportunity as a member of editorial board to influence the decision making process regarding the publication of a piece of research. The USA was found to have the highest share in occupying the different positions in editorial board of these journals. However, the share of developing countries was shown to be little. Considering the ratio of opportunities to the population size of countries, a wider gap associated with the distribution of inequality was revealed. Conclusion: Filling the gap between the developed and developing countries regarding the health and education requires a serious move towards providing the equity in access to capability development in health research.