title: Imbalances in the knowledge about infant mental health in rich and poor countries: too little progress in bridging the gap.
abstract: The vast majority of infants are born in poor countries, but most of our knowledge about infants and children has emerged from high-income countries. In 2003, M. Tomlinson and L. Swartz conducted a survey of articles on infancy between 1996 and 2001 from major international journals, reporting that a meager 5% of articles emanated from parts of the world other than North America, Europe, or Australasia. In this article, we conducted a similar review of articles on infancy published between 2002 and 2012 to assess whether the status of cross-national research has changed in the subsequent decade. Results indicate that despite slight improvements in research output from the rest of world, only 2.3% of articles published in 11 years included data from low- and middle-income countries--where 90% of the world's infants live. These discrepancies are indicative of the progress still needed to bridge the so-called 10/90 gap (S. Saxena, G. Paraje, P. Sharan, G. Karam, & R. Sadana,) in infant mental health research. Cross-national collaboration is urgently required to ensure expansion of research production in low-resource settings.
authors: Stellenbosch University.
authors: Mark
authors: M
authors: Tomlinson
authors: Marc H
authors: MH
authors: Bornstein
authors: Marguerite
authors: M
authors: Marlow
authors: Leslie
authors: L
authors: Swartz
mesh_terms: D044362:Australasia; D015706:Bibliometrics; D002648:Child; D003906:Developing Countries; D005060:Europe; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000145:classification*; D007223:Infant; D007229:Infant Welfare; D007391:International Cooperation; D019359:Knowledge; D008603:Mental Health; D009656:North America; D011642:Publications