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The migration of physicians from sub-Saharan Africa to the United States of America: measures of the African brain drain

Overview of attention for article published in Human Resources for Health, December 2004
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#15 of 1,267)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
12 news outlets
policy
2 policy sources
twitter
14 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
292 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
369 Mendeley
connotea
1 Connotea
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Title
The migration of physicians from sub-Saharan Africa to the United States of America: measures of the African brain drain
Published in
Human Resources for Health, December 2004
DOI 10.1186/1478-4491-2-17
Pubmed ID
Authors

Amy Hagopian, Matthew J Thompson, Meredith Fordyce, Karin E Johnson, L Gary Hart

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The objective of this paper is to describe the numbers, characteristics, and trends in the migration to the United States of physicians trained in sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS: We used the American Medical Association 2002 Masterfile to identify and describe physicians who received their medical training in sub-Saharan Africa and are currently practicing in the USA. RESULTS: More than 23% of America's 771 491 physicians received their medical training outside the USA, the majority (64%) in low-income or lower middle-income countries. A total of 5334 physicians from sub-Saharan Africa are in that group, a number that represents more than 6% of the physicians practicing in sub-Saharan Africa now. Nearly 86% of these Africans practicing in the USA originate from only three countries: Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana. Furthermore, 79% were trained at only 10 medical schools. CONCLUSIONS: Physician migration from poor countries to rich ones contributes to worldwide health workforce imbalances that may be detrimental to the health systems of source countries. The migration of over 5000 doctors from sub-Saharan Africa to the USA has had a significantly negative effect on the doctor-to-population ratio of Africa. The finding that the bulk of migration occurs from only a few countries and medical schools suggests policy interventions in only a few locations could be effective in stemming the brain drain.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 14 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 369 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 4 1%
Netherlands 2 <1%
Zambia 1 <1%
Pakistan 1 <1%
Egypt 1 <1%
India 1 <1%
Unknown 359 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 57 15%
Student > Bachelor 55 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 38 10%
Researcher 32 9%
Lecturer 31 8%
Other 82 22%
Unknown 74 20%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 107 29%
Social Sciences 59 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 47 13%
Business, Management and Accounting 22 6%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 14 4%
Other 33 9%
Unknown 87 24%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 108. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 September 2022.
All research outputs
#391,228
of 25,550,333 outputs
Outputs from Human Resources for Health
#15
of 1,267 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#597
of 150,854 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Human Resources for Health
#1
of 2 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,550,333 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,267 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 150,854 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 2 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them