ORCID
Sarah Bratt: 0000-0002-3642-4425
Jian Qin: 0000-0002-7094-2867
Jeff Hemsley: 0000-0001-9276-6983
Document Type
Manuscript
Date
2023
Keywords
Collaboration networks, GenBank metadata analysis, virus outbreaks
Language
English
Funder(s)
National Science Foundation; National Institute of General Medical Sciences
Funding ID
NSF #1561348; NIH #R01GM137409
Acknowledgements
We thank Shripad Laddha for his technical assistance in data analysis and processing.
Research reported in this publication was supported by National Science Foundation Award No. 1561348 and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award No. R01GM137409. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Disciplines
Library and Information Science | Scholarly Communication
Description/Abstract
Countries around the world su er from outbreaks of viral diseases. These outbreaks are worsened by socio-economic inequality, both nationally and internationally. To combat these outbreaks, scientific research is conducted. Our paper analyzes the NIH GenBank virus research network (a net record of virus research from 1992-2018) to discover viral outbreaks and ask how the network responded in the event of these outbreaks, with interest in the changes in collaboration between research teams, increased activity, and when + where this activity occurred with the objective of examining the equity of the international response to public health events. We conclude that the GenBank virus network during this time period was generally equitable - rich Western nations consistently contributed to research on viruses that did not necessarily e ect them. However, this begs the question of the definition of equity - should poorer countries, who have historically suffered at the hands of their Northern counterparts, be funded to conduct their own virus research, or is the position of the United states acceptable in the pursuit of research equality, as long as the US acts selflessly? We further discuss the definition of an equitable network, propose methods for increasing international research equality, as well as examine the global impacts of disease outbreak and discuss the motivation behind increasing equity and the international scientific community's ability to react to crises.
Recommended Citation
Dewitt, W., Bratt, S., Qin, J., & Hemsley, J. (2023).Virus outbreaks and international scientific collaboration: A quantitative analysis of NIH GenBank metadata (1992-2018).
Source
submission
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
