Trends in biomedical publications: US and Japanese authors in US journals and European journals

Recently, a decrease in the number of US authored biomedical papers has been linked to the slowed growth of funding from the National Institutes of Health. The online biomedical database EMBASE was used to determine the proportion of biomedical papers from US and Japanese insti tutions in 49 US journals and 63 English language European journals. The proportion of US-authored papers in US jour nals declined from 80% in 1978 to 65% in 1990, whereas that in European journals remained steady at 20-25%. Over this period, the contributions from Japanese institutions in both types of journals increased from 2% to 6%. The number of publications from English language Journals published in Japan has remained constant. The decline in US-authored papers in US journals may have more to do with high stan dards of non-US authored publications than reduced financial support.