Impact of Matthew Effect on Authorship Trends in a Renowned Public Health Dentistry Journal

Abstract Introduction: Scientifically, Matthew’s effect refers to the maxim “rich get richer and poor get poorer.” This study investigated whether the gap between well-known, older Indian public health dentists and newer authors widens over time, as suggested by the Matthew effect and trends in the publication in the Journal of Indian Association of Public Health Dentistry (JIAPHD). Methodology: Investigators of the current study hypothesized that the Matthew effect, a phenomenon in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, could be applied to the work published by Indian public health dentists in the JIAPHD. The names of the authors in JIAPHD from 2002 to 2022 were recorded year-wise and the data were entered into Microsoft Excel 2021. Results: Over the course of the study (2002–2022), 1039 papers were published in JIAPHD by 1971 authors. There were 67% of authors who contributed one paper and 16.6% who contributed two papers. Ten or more papers had been contributed by 2% of authors throughout the study period. A Matthew effect was found for publications in JIAPHD, and it was a relatively large effect. Conclusions: According to the study results, The Matthew effect is often observed in JIAPHD’s publication trends.