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It’s Movember – Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
tNovember in the UK is prostate cancer awareness month, spearheaded by Prostate Cancer UK who have a simple ambition – to stop men dying from prostate cancer. You may be familiar with the successful Movember Campaign – Prostate Cancer UK is the main beneficiary of this campaign – who knew that growing a dodgy moustache could raise so much money, significantly contributing to scientific research. You can read here about the scientific advances Prostate Cancer UK have made in 2015-16 to help tame prostate cancer within the next ten years.
As part of the Movember festivities we decided to explore the data we have on prostate cancer, looking at how much attention clinical trials and research in the field get online, and also how much funding goes towards both in the UK and worldwide.
Using data from our portfolio company ÜberResearch’s Dimensions database, in Table 1 you can see that 2.3 billion Euros of global funding in 2016 goes towards prostate cancer; this covers a huge 2,086 projects!
Table 1: Dimensions Database – Global funding in 2016 for the term prostate cancer
These stats are just as impressive in the UK alone, where Prostate Cancer UK focuses its efforts. In Table 2 below you can see that 228.5 million Euros of funding in 2016 have gone towards prostate cancer research, with over 200 prostate cancer projects.
Table 2: Dimensions Database – UK funding in 2016 for the term prostate cancer
Taking a dive into the Altmetric Explorer database, you can see in Figure 1 the online attention surrounding the prostate cancer clinical trials registered on the ClinicalTrials.gov site – some of which are still ongoing. (See the data behind this graph on Figshare here)
Figure 1: Altmetric data – Clinical trials with prostate cancer in their title
The large amounts of red in this graph speaks to the increasing amount of news coverage that some of these trials are receiving (sure this is bolstered by Prostate Cancer UK’s efforts!)
In Figure 2 below you can see the attention that Altmetric has tracked for journal articles published with ‘prostate cancer’ in the title of the paper (find the original data on Figshare here):
Figure 2: Altmetric data – Attention for journal articles published with ‘prostate cancer’ in the title
The prevalence of light and dark blue in the graph points to a lot of engagement on Twitter and Facebook, where the research is being shared by patient and advocacy groups amongst a much broader audience.
The Altmetric data also highlights where this research has been referenced over 1,500 times in policy documents – showcasing how important these studies are for informing public health initiatives and shaping the global response to combatting this disease.
Based on this data, it’s great to see how much interaction is going on around this research and reaching broad audiences. Let’s hope this continues to grow, just like the moustaches!
