Global Dental Research Productivity and Its Association With Human Development, Gross National Income, and Political Stability

• During the year 2013, 11,952 dental research articles were published across the world.
• There is a regional concentration of articles.
• Human and economic development correlated with research productivity.
• Research productivity increases with increasing political stability of a country.

ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to examine the associations between country level factors (such as human development, economic productivity, and political stability) and their dental research productivity.MethodsThis study is a cross-sectional analysis of bibliometric data from Scopus search engine. Human Development Index (HDI), Gross National Income per capita (GNI), and Failed State Index measures were the independent variables. Outcomes were “Total number of publications (articles or articles in press) in the field of dentistry” and “Total number of publications in the field of dentistry per million population.” Non-parametric tests were used to examine the association between the independent and outcome variables.ResultsDuring the year 2013, a total of 11,952 dental research articles were published across the world. The top 5 publishing countries were United States, Brazil, India, Japan, and United Kingdom. “Very High” HDI countries had significantly higher number of total dental research articles and dental research articles per million population when compared to the “High HDI,” “Medium HDI,” and “Low HDI” countries (p < 0.0001). There was a significant linear relationship between the GNI quartile income levels and outcome metrics (p ≤ 0.007). Countries which were highly politically stable were associated with significantly higher dental research productivity (p < 0.0001).ConclusionsThere appears to be a regional concentration of articles with just five countries contributing to over 50% of all articles. The human development and economic development of a country are linearly correlated with dental research productivity. Dental research productivity also increases with increasing political stability of a country.