ECU health sciences authors honored for publications

Faculty and staff from across East Carolina University’s Division of Health Sciences gathered Nov. 9 at the Trade Club in TowneBank Tower at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium for the William E. Laupus Health Sciences Library’s 16th annual Health Sciences Author Recognition Awards.

Laupus Library celebrated its 16th annual Health Sciences Author Recognition Awards Nov. 9 at the Trade Club in TowneBank Tower at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. Pictured from left are Chair of the Friends of Laupus Library, Dr. John Papalas, Interim Vice Chancellor for the Division of Health Sciences, Dr. Ron Mitchelon, and 2021 book authors Dr. Nupur Sharma, Dr. Walter Pories and Jeff Coghill. (Photos by Rhett Butler.)

The event, a tradition for the Health Sciences Campus, honored publications across disciplines, many of which contributed to a growing international field of COVID-19-related research and discovery.

“It is regularly said that ECU is one of, if not the best, example of a mission-driven university,” said Laupus Library Director Beth Ketterman. “As you all know, our mission is ‘servire,’ to serve. There is no better reflection of that mission than the instruction, clinical work and research that comes out of the health sciences division. For the authors here tonight, exemplary service for the public good comes in the form of the scholarly works you produced and published this most recent academic year.”

The event was sponsored by the Friends of Laupus Library, Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, Matthews Medical Books and Teton Data Systems.

This year, 112 authors published a total of 364 qualified peer-reviewed publications including 350 journal articles, 11 book chapters and three books between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021.

Authors from the Brody School of Medicine, College of Nursing, College of Allied Health Sciences, Laupus Library and the School of Dental Medicine were recognized by name and school or college in a printed program given to all attendees.

Ketterman said that along with the rest of the university community, faculty authors and researchers adapted early during the pandemic to alter their work to address the region’s direct needs.

Laupus Library Director Beth Ketterman speaks during the Health Sciences Author Recognition Awards ceremony.

“A terrific reflection of our mission exists with the COVID-related literature produced by ECU authors,” she said. “These authors pivoted in early 2020 to include the impact of COVID-19 into research already in progress, or they started brand new investigations to discover how the virus was changing and developing or impacting all aspects of health care and society.”

Ketterman shared data on the breadth and reach of the research published across the division.

The research topics came from all the schools, colleges, and the library and included themes such as nursing students’ experiences during the pandemic, population health in rural America as COVID spread, vaccine hesitancy amongst Medicare beneficiaries and the social aspects of COVID as it relates to oral health.

“All certainly reflect the service work of the authors, and therefore ECU’s mission,” Ketterman said.

There were 160 unique indexed works from ECU, including 118 authored by representatives of the health sciences division. Ketterman further explored the data to provide a clearer picture of author productivity, collaboration and impact of the publications. For the COVID-related works, the Brody School of Medicine had 146 author affiliations, including 25 from the Department of Public Health. The College of Allied Health Sciences had 18 author affiliations, the College of Nursing had 15, the School of Dental Medicine had 13 and Laupus Library had five.

Of the 160 unique ECU-authored publications, 64 were intradepartmental, 30 were interdepartmental and 18 were co-authored among faculty from different colleges, schools or libraries at ECU. Ninety included U.S.-based co-authors and 35 included international co-authors. Of the 35 articles with international collaborators, 39 different countries are represented. There were 11 articles with authors from China, publications with a Canadian co-author came in next at seven, the UK six, and Italy and Singapore were next at five publications each. The remaining countries listed here were represented on three articles each.

“We can see that ECU is very collaborative with its COVID research output, especially when it comes to national-level collaborations with coauthors,” said Ketterman, who also noted that ECU’s 160 works have also been cited numerous times in colleagues’ research.

For more information about the annual awards ceremony – including a complete listing of this year’s published authors – visit the website.