Original Article

Scholarly Productivity of US Medical Schools Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Authors: Catherine Gray, BS, Jhojana L. Infante Linares, MS, Karlene Cunningham, PhD, Dmitry Tumin, PhD

Abstract

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic profoundly disrupted scientific research but was accompanied by a rapid increase in biomedical research focused on this new disease. We aimed to study how the academic productivity of US medical schools changed during the pandemic and what structural characteristics of medical schools were associated with trends in scholarly publication.

Methods: Annual totals of publications for each US Doctor of Medicine–granting medical school were extracted for 2019 to 2021 from the Scopus database, and schools were categorized a priori as experiencing a sustained increase in publications, a transient increase in publications, or no increase in publications. Bivariate tests compared school characteristics among these three groups.

Results: Of 139 Doctor of Medicine–granting medical schools, 79% experienced sustained growth in publications from 2019 to 2021, 6% experienced transient growth, and 14% experienced no growth. Sustained growth in publications was associated with being affiliated with a research-intensive university, larger faculty size, the presence of an Emergency Medicine residency, having higher baseline National Institutes of Health funding, and experiencing higher coronavirus disease 2019 infection rates in the local community during the early months of the pandemic. Among predominantly White institutions, a higher diversity of female faculty was associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing transient rather than sustained growth in publications.

Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that scientific output increased during the pandemic at most medical schools, despite significant barriers to research experienced by individual investigators. Further attention is needed to enhance equity in research opportunities, considering diverging trends in productivity between more- and less-advantaged schools, however.
Posted in: Infectious Disease136

Full Article

Having trouble viewing the article content below? Click here to open it directly.

Images

Download Image

Download Image

Download Image

References

1. Aviv-Reuven Sed, Rosenfield A. Publication patterns’ changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal and short-term scientometric analysis. Scientometrics 2021;126:6761-6784.
 
2. Miller R, Tsai J. Scholarly publishing in the wake of COVID-19. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2020;108:491-495.
 
3. Krukowski R, Jagsi R, Cardel M. Academic productivity differences by gender and child age in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Womens Health 2021;30:341-347.
 
4. Myers K, Yang Tham W, Yin Y, et al. Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists. Nat Hum Behav 2020;4:880-883.
 
5. Tumin D, Brewer K, Cummings D, et al. Estimating clinical research project duration from idea to publication. J Investig Med 2022;70:108–109.
 
6. Noble P, Eyck P, Roskowski R, et al. NIH funding trends to US medical schools from 2009 to 2018. PLoS One 2020;15:e0233367.
 
7. Carr P, Raj A, Kaplan S, et al. Gender differences in academic medicine: retention, rank and leadership comparisons from the National Faculty Survey. Acad Med 2018;93:1694-1699.
 
8. Braxton M, Infante Linares J, Tumin D, et al. Scholarly productivity of faculty in primary care roles related to tenure vs non-tenure tracks. BMC Med Educ 2020;20:174.
 
9. Zhang F, Yan E, Niu X, et al. Joint modeling of the association between NIH funding and its three primary outcomes: patents, publications and citation impact. Scientometrics 2018:117;591-602.
 
10. Warner E, Carapinha R, Weber G, et al. Considering context in academic medicine: differences in demographic and professional characteristics and in research productivity and advancement metrics across seven clinical departments. Acad Med 2015:90;1077-1083.
 
11. Eagan K, Garvey J. Stressing out: connecting race, gender and stress with faculty productivity. J Higher Educ 2015;86:923-954.
 
12. Tumin D, Khanchandani A, Sasser G, et al. Factors influencing US hospital and medical school participation in pediatric COVID-19 research. Hosp Pediatr 2021;12:8-14.
 
13. Association of American Medical Colleges. Faculty Roster Benchmark Reports, 2019. https://services.aamc.org/famous. Published 2019. Accessed April 27, 2022.
 
14. Cui R, Ding H, Zhu F. Gender inequality in research productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Manufacturing Service Operations Manag 2022;2:707-726.
 
15. American Association of Medical Colleges. Report. FACTS: applicants, matriculants, enrollment, graduates, MD-PhD, and residency applicants data. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/students-residents/report/facts. Accessed July 16, 2022.
 
16. The Match. Main residency match data and reports. https://www.nrmp.org/match-data-analytics/residency-data-reports/. Accessed July 16, 2022.
 
17. Gouda D, Singh PM, Gouda P, et al. An overview of health care worker reported deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Am Board Fam Med 2021; 34(suppl):S244-S246.
 
18. Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research (2021). Carnegie Classifications 2021 public data file. 30 March 2023. Available at: http://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/downloads/CCIHE2021-PublicDataFile.xlsx. Accessed August 2, 2023.
 
19. covidestim. COVID-19 nowcasting. A complete, current, and granular picture of COVID-19 epidemic in the United States. https://covidestim.org/. Accessed February 14, 2022.
 
20. Singh JA, Bandewar SV, Bukusi EA. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic response on other health research. Bull World Health Organ 2020;98:625-631.
 
21. Mohan S. Challenges of clinical research administration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Narrat Inq Bioeth 2021;11:101-105.
 
22. Gordon B. Research during the pandemic: views from both sides of the fence. Narrat Inq Bioeth 2021;11:39-45.
 
23. Klont F, Hopfgartner G. Bioanalytical research and training in academia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bioanalysis 2020;12:1209-1211.
 
24. Radecki J, Schonfield R. The impacts of COVID-19 on the research enterprise: a landscape review. https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/the-impacts-of-covid-19-on-the-research-enterprise/. Published October 26, 2020. Accessed July 21, 2023.
 
25. Giannos P, Kechagias KS, Katsikas Triantafyllidis K, et al. Spotlight on early COVID-19 research productivity: a 1-year bibliometric analysis. Front Public Health 2022;10:811885.
 
26. Raynaud M, Goutaudier V, Louis K, et al. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on publication dynamics and non-COVID-19 research production. BMC Med Res Methodol 2021;21:255.
 
27. Riccaboni M, Verginer L. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific research in the life sciences. PLoS One 2022;17:e0263001.
 
28. Laraja K, Mansfield L, de Ferranti S, et al. Disproportionate negative career impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on female pediatric cardiologists in the northeast United States. Pediatr Cardiol 2022;43:1913-1921.
 
29. Kotini-Shah P, Man B, Pobee R, et al. Work-life balance and productivity among academic faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic: a latent class analysis. J Womens Health (Larchmt) 2022;31:321-330.
 
30. Ginther DK, Basner J, Jensen U, et al. Publications as predictors of racial and ethnic differences in NIH research awards. PLoS One 2018;13:e0205929.
 
31. Sebo P, Oertelt-Prigione S, de Lucia S, et al. COVID-19: a magnifying glass for gender inequalities in medical research. Br J Gen Pract 2020;70:526-527.
 
32. Molina-Leyva A, Descalzo MA, García-Doval I. Clinical research in dermatology: resources and activities associated with a higher scientific productivity. G Ital Dermatol Venereol 2019;154:386-391.
 
33. Mullen R, Weidner A, Liaw W, et al. Family medicine research capacity in the USA. Fam Pract 2021;38:187-189.
 
34. Farooq F, Mogayzel PJ, Lanzkron S, et al. Comparison of US federal and foundation funding of research for sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis and factors associated with research productivity. JAMA Netw Open 2020; 3:e201737.
 
35. Pololi LH, Vasiliou V, Bloom-Feshbach K. Midcareer medical school research faculty perspectives on vitality and professionalism during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Netw Open 2021;4:e2120642.
 
36. Balaguru L, Dun C, Meyer A, et al. NIH funding of COVID-19 research in 2020: a cross-sectional study. BMJ Open 2022;12:e059041.
 
37. Anthony-Townsend N, Beech BM, Norris KC. Historically Black medical schools: addressing the minority health professional pipeline and the public mission of care for vulnerable populations. In: Professional Education at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Past Trends and Outcomes, Fountaine Boykin T, Hilton A, and Palmer R, eds. New York: Routledge: 57-73.
 
38. Deng S, Lai Y, Myers SL, et al. Foundation giving and economics research productivity at HBCUs: empirical evidence from the Koch Foundation. J Econ Race Policy 2021;4:215-236.
 
39. Dahlberg ML, Higginbotham E, eds. The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2021.
 
40. Squazzoni F, Bravo G, Grimaldo F, et al. Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals. PLoS One 2021;16:e0257919.
 
41. National Institutes of Health. Announcement of childcare costs for Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) individual fellows. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-21-074.html. Published March 15, 2021. Accessed July 21, 2023.
 
42. Steinmetz JE. The pandemic appears to be waning: what’s next for our universities. https://journals.ku.edu/merrill/article/view/16409. Published January 20, 2022. Accessed July 21, 2023.
 
43. Moreland A, Herlihy C, Tynan MA, et al. Timing of state and territorial COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and changes in population movement—United States, March 1-May 31, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:1198-1203.