Evans, J. A., Shim, J., & Ioannidis, J. A. (2014). Attention to Local Health Burden and the Global Disparity of Health Research. Plos ONE, 9(4), 1-9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090147

In this peer-reviewed journal article, two main factors, i.e. global burden of disease and global market for treatment, are analyzed for a correlation with medical research. With the reasoning that biomedical research can be measured using the total number and type of research articles – systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials, and research on animals subject – published in a well-known database called MEDLINE, researchers sought to understand how disease burden and treatment drives research in poor and developed countries. Global burden of disease was measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 111 conditions. The global market for treatment was measured as follows:

In the above equation, GNI stands for gross national income per capita.

The findings concluded that despite the fact that poor populations have the highest burden of disease and disability, the least medical research is carried for them. Furthermore, the global market for the same condition in developed country is significantly higher than that for a poor country. It is important to address global inequality in health research because policies based on evidenced-based research can be implemented only when enough research is conducted.