The contribution to ophthalmic literature from different regions of the world.
OBJECTIVE
To compare the volume of ophthalmic literature from the developed and developing countries.


METHODS
We performed a retrospective review of the five highest scoring impact factor journals in ophthalmology within the 3 year period 1998-2000 inclusive. Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan were categorised as developed countries, all others were categorised as developing market economies. Correspondence, news articles and book reviews were excluded from our study.


RESULTS
The developing world contributed to only 5.47% of the literature compared to the 92.19% from the developed world. The majority of the contribution to ophthalmic literature from the developing countries originated from Israel, S. America, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore and Korea. 2.33% of literature was the result of collaborative research from the two groups.


CONCLUSIONS
The developing countries account for 90.8% of world blindness, compared to 9.2% from the developed countries, there is therefore, an inverse relationship between the burden of world blindness and the contribution to the highest impact factor ophthalmic journals with the developed countries only contributing to 5% of this research.
Mandal
Kaveri
K
Sunderland Eye Infirmary, Queen Alexandra Road, Sunderland SR2 9HP, UK.
Benson
Sarah
S
Fraser
Scott G
SG
D015706:Bibliometrics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003906:Developing Countries; D006801:Humans; D009885:Ophthalmology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*