Chinese journals: a guide for epidemiologists

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Abstract

Chinese journals in epidemiology, preventive medicine and public health contain much that is of potential international interest. However, few non-Chinese speakers are acquainted with this literature. This article therefore provides an overview of the contemporary scene in Chinese biomedical journal publication, Chinese bibliographic databases and Chinese journals in epidemiology, preventive medicine and public health. The challenge of switching to English as the medium of publication, the development of publishing bibliometric data from Chinese databases, the prospect of an Open Access publication model in China, the issue of language bias in literature reviews and the quality of Chinese journals are discussed. Epidemiologists are encouraged to search the Chinese bibliographic databases for Chinese journal articles.

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Language bias in randomised controlled trials published in English and German.

M. Egger, T Zellweger-Zähner, M. Schneider … (1997)

Some randomised controlled trials (RCTs) done in German-speaking Europe are published in international English-language journals and others in national German-language journals. We assessed whether authors are more likely to report trials with statistically significant results in English than in German. We studied pairs of RCT reports, matched for first author and time of publication, with one report published in German and the other in English. Pairs were identified from reports round in a manual search of five leading German-language journals and from reports published by the same authors in English found on Medline. Quality of methods and reporting were assessed with two different scales by two investigators who were unaware of authors' identities, affiliations, and other characteristics of trial reports. Main study endpoints were selected by two investigators who were unaware of trial results. Our main outcome was the number of pairs of studies in which the levels of significance (shown by p values) were discordant. 62 eligible pairs of reports were identified but 19 (31%) were excluded because they were duplicate publications. A further three pairs (5%) were excluded because no p values were given. The remaining 40 pairs were analysed. Design characteristics and quality features were similar for reports in both languages. Only 35% of German-language articles, compared with 62% of English-language articles, reported significant (p < 0.05) differences in the main endpoint between study and control groups (p = 0.002 by McNemar's test). Logistic regression showed that the only characteristic that predicted publication in an English-language journal was a significant result. The odds ratio for publication of trials with significant results in English was 3.75 (95% CI 1.25-11.3). Authors were more likely to publish RCTs in an English-language journal if the results were statistically significant. English language bias may, therefore, be introduced in reviews and meta-analyses if they include only trials reported in English. The effort of the Cochrane Collaboration to identify as many controlled trials as possible, through the manual search of many medical journals published in different languages will help to reduce such bias.

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How important are comprehensive literature searches and the assessment of trial quality in systematic reviews? Empirical study.

Jos I. M. Egger, J Sterne, P Jüni … (2002)

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Do certain countries produce only positive results? A systematic review of controlled trials.

A. Vickers, N. Goyal, R. Harland … (1998)

To determine whether clinical trials originating in certain countries always have positive results. Abstracts of trials from Medline (January 1966-June 1995). Two separate studies were conducted. The first included trials in which the clinical outcome of a group of subjects receiving acupuncture was compared to that of a group receiving placebo, no treatment, or a nonacupuncture intervention. In the second study, randomized or controlled trials of interventions other than acupuncture that were published in China, Japan, Russia/USSR, or Taiwan were compared to those published in England. Blinded reviewers determined inclusion and outcome and separately classified each trial by country of origin. In the study of acupuncture trials, 252 of 1085 abstracts met the inclusion criteria. Research conducted in certain countries was uniformly favorable to acupuncture; all trials originating in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were positive, as were 10 out of 11 of those published in Russia/USSR. In studies that examined interventions other than acupuncture, 405 of 1100 abstracts met the inclusion criteria. Of trials published in England, 75% gave the test treatment as superior to control. The results for China, Japan, Russia/USSR, and Taiwan were 99%, 89%, 97%, and 95%, respectively. No trial published in China or Russia/USSR found a test treatment to be ineffective. Some countries publish unusually high proportions of positive results. Publication bias is a possible explanation. Researchers undertaking systematic reviews should consider carefully how to manage data from these countries.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Emerg Themes Epidemiol

Title: Emerging Themes in Epidemiology

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1742-7622

Publication date Collection: 2008

Publication date (Electronic): 30 September 2008

Volume: 5

Page: 20

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, UK

Article

Publisher ID: 1742-7622-5-20

DOI: 10.1186/1742-7622-5-20

PMC ID: 2648956

PubMed ID: 18826604

SO-VID: dfd2fc0c-882a-4dfd-bb64-127d1a5c4098

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Chinese journals: a guide for epidemiologists

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Abstract

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Chinese Journal of School Health

Most cited references 52

Language bias in randomised controlled trials published in English and German.

How important are comprehensive literature searches and the assessment of trial quality in systematic reviews? Empirical study.

Do certain countries produce only positive results? A systematic review of controlled trials.

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