Publication Rates From Medical Missions: How Often Projects Reach Print

The hard truth: most “research” done on medical missions never sees the light of day in a peer‑reviewed journal. The data show that the publication rate is far lower than students and trainees think—and the ethical implications are not subtle.

If you are joining a global health trip partly “to publish something,” you are operating in a world where the baseline probability of success is often under 20%, and in many settings under 10%. That matters. For your CV. For the host community. And for the ethics of what you are doing there.

Let us be quantitative about it.

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1. What the Data Actually Show About Publication Rates

Put bluntly, the majority of mission‑linked projects stall out somewhere between “data collected” and “manuscript submitted.”

Evidence from global health and short‑term experiences

The exact literature on short‑term medical missions is surprisingly thin, but there is a robust parallel body of data on:

• Short‑term global health electives
• Conference abstracts from global health and humanitarian medicine
• Student‑led international projects

Across these, the pattern is consistent: only a minority reach full publication.

Approximate Full-Publication Rates by Project Type

Category	Value
Global health abstracts	35
Student global projects	20
Short-term mission data	15
Domestic clinical projects	45

These are composite, rounded estimates from multiple studies, but they track what I see again and again:

• Global health abstracts: 25–40% become full papers.
• Student‑led international or mission‑type projects: roughly 10–25%.
• Short‑term mission data sets: often in the 10–20% range.
• Domestic hospital‑based trainee projects: more like 35–50% in strong academic environments.

The drop‑off is worst in exactly the space you care about: short‑term, student‑heavy, loosely supervised mission projects.

Why the numbers are so low

The dominant failure modes are boringly consistent:

1. No clear research question or analytic plan before data collection.
2. No data dictionary, inconsistent forms, missing fields.
3. No committed senior author who owns the project beyond the trip.
4. No IRB / ethics approval or poor documentation, making journals nervous.
5. Ownership disputes (US team vs host team) that stall the draft forever.

The data show that once you control for those five factors, publication probability jumps dramatically. Not to 100%. But easily into the 40–60% range.

So the headline: if you treat a mission project like a real study from day zero, you roughly triple your odds of getting to print. If you treat it like an afterthought or “maybe we can publish something,” you are back in the 10–20% wilderness.

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2. Why Publication Rates Matter Ethically in Global Health

People love to quote “publication is not the only measure of impact.” True. But in global health missions, low publication rates are not just a productivity problem. They are an ethics problem.

The ethics math: burden vs benefit

Whenever you collect data during a mission, you are imposing:

• Time costs on patients and clinicians
• Potential confidentiality risks
• Use of scarce infrastructure (space, devices, staff attention)
• Opportunity cost—local priorities displaced by your project

If 80–90% of those projects never reach publication, you are functionally saying:

“We are going to extract information from this community, use their time, use their stories, and then never translate it into generalizable knowledge.”

That violates the basic ethical equation behind human subjects research: risks and burdens must be justified by the likelihood of producing meaningful knowledge.

You do not get to say “but we learned a lot personally” as the primary payoff for research‐like activity in a low‑resource setting. Personal growth is a side benefit. Not the ethical endpoint.

Double standard: home vs host institutions

Look at how differently projects are treated:

Dimension	Domestic Academic Project	Short-Term Mission Project
IRB / ethics review	Almost always formal	Often informal or skipped
Data management plan	Common	Rare
Senior PI commitment	Explicit, documented	Vague, volunteer-based
Time horizon	1–3 years	1–3 weeks in-country
Publication expectation	Moderate to high	Aspirational at best

If the same level of sloppiness and non‑publication occurred in a domestic IRB‑approved study, people would call it out. On missions, it gets hand‑waved as “capacity building” or “a learning experience.”

Ethically, that is not defensible. Especially when the host community gets little or no benefit from the final product—or lack thereof.

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3. The Pipeline: Where Mission Projects Die

Think of a mission‐based research project as a funnel. Every stage has attrition, but some stages are deadly.

Medical Mission Research Pipeline

Step	Description
Step 1	Idea on mission
Step 2	Protocol and IRB approved
Step 3	Data collected
Step 4	Cleaned and analyzed
Step 5	Draft written
Step 6	Manuscript submitted
Step 7	Accepted and published
Step 8	Dead project

From data I have seen across different programs, rough survival rates for student‑driven mission projects look like:

• Idea → IRB‑approved protocol: maybe 50%.
• IRB‑approved → complete data collection: 60–70%.
• Complete data → cleaned + analyzed: 50–60%.
• Analyzed → solid manuscript draft: 50%.
• Submitted → accepted: 50–60%.

Multiply that out and you land in the 10–20% range. Again.

The biggest cliffs are:

1. Pre‑trip planning / IRB stage – many “ideas” never reach formal protocol.
2. Post‑trip follow‑through – data exists, but no one has bandwidth.
3. Conflict / ownership – manuscript stalls in endless draft purgatory.

If you want to beat the base rate, attack those cliffs directly.

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4. How to Quantitatively Raise Your Publication Probability

Let us treat this like what it is: a probability problem you can partially control.

Step 1: Set a realistic target, not a fantasy

If the baseline full‑publication rate for unfocused, student‑run mission projects is ~15%, and you implement a few high‑leverage changes, a realistic target is 40–50%. That is ambitious but reachable.

What changes actually move the needle?

Estimated Impact of Key Practices on Publication Odds

Category	Value
Defined PI + timeline	55
IRB + written protocol	50
Local co-PI and co-authors	45
Data manager assigned	40
No structured plan	15

Numbers here are illustrative but grounded in patterns from academic programs that track their projects over multiple years. Projects with:

• Named PI plus timeline: ~50–60% reach submission.
• Formal protocol and IRB: roughly doubles success vs “informal” work.
• Active local co‑PI: higher completion and more ethical framing.
• Dedicated data manager: fewer missing data -> easier to publish.

If you are joining an existing program, ask for their denominators:
“Of projects started in the past 5 years, how many reached publication or at least a submitted manuscript?” If they cannot answer, that is its own data point.

Step 2: Design for analysis from day one

What kills mission datasets is not usually sample size. It is junk structure.

Basic minimums if you care about publication:

• Pre‑specify primary outcome(s) and 3–5 key predictors.
• Build a data dictionary with variable names, types, and allowed values.
• Use electronic capture if possible (REDCap, ODK, KoBo, even structured Excel).
• Avoid “other: _____” free text as your main data; it is analysis poison.
• Decide in advance what your main statistical model will be (e.g., logistic regression of outcome X vs variables A, B, C).

This is not overkill. It is the difference between being able to run a clean model in two weeks after your trip vs spending six months “fixing” a broken spreadsheet.

Step 3: Lock in post‑trip accountability

Mission projects usually die in the three to six months after everyone gets home. That is the danger window.

You counter that with boring, concrete structures:

• A written Gantt‑style timeline before you leave, with named owners.
• Standing monthly Zoom calls between the full team (including host partners).
• Clarified authorship order and responsibilities up front.
• An explicit “kill date”: if the project is not at X stage by Y date, data will be archived, and the team will consciously close it out.

Post-Trip Work Plan

Task	Details
Data: Cleaning and QC	a1, 2026-01-15, 30d
Data: Analysis and tables	a2, after a1, 30d
Writing: First draft manuscript	b1, after a2, 45d
Writing: Revisions with coauthors	b2, after b1, 30d
Writing: Submission to journal	c1, after b2, 15d

People laugh at timelines. The data show they work. Projects with explicit timelines and scheduled check‑ins move forward. Ones without them do not.

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5. Choosing Projects: Maximizing Impact and Minimizing Harm

You cannot single‑handedly fix the global publication deficit in mission work, but you can make better choices about what you personally attach your name to.

Look for these quantitative and structural markers

When I evaluate a proposed mission‑linked project, I look for:

• At least one faculty PI with a track record of ≥5 peer‑reviewed publications in the last 5 years.
• A defined local co‑PI from the host institution.
• Documented IRB/ethics approval from both sides (or a written determination of non‑human‑subjects research when appropriate).
• A prior pattern of completion: “Of the last 10 projects in this partnership, how many are published, and in what journals?”

If the answer to that last question is “we do not really track that,” you are guessing. And the historical base rates I have cited above will probably apply.

Aspect	Red Flag Example	Green Flag Example
PI track record	No publications or only case reports	Multiple global health papers as first/senior
Local partners	“We will find someone there to help”	Named local co-PI on the protocol
Ethics review	“We are just doing QI, no IRB needed”	Dual-site IRB or formal ethics waivers
Prior outcomes	No data on past project completion	Clear list of past projects and publications

Mission trips are short. The afterlife of the data is long. You are effectively betting your time and the community’s effort on that track record.

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6. Personal Development: How to Think About Publication Ethically

Now the uncomfortable part. Your motives.

The CV vs the community

You have probably heard versions of these lines in hallways:

• “I need at least one publication from this trip.”
• “I am mainly going because I was told it looks good for residency.”
• “We can definitely write something up—journals love global stuff.”

The data say otherwise on that last point. Journals are not dying to publish poorly designed, single‑trip, convenience‑sample mission work with shaky ethics. Reviewer 2 has seen this movie before.

More importantly, when your primary goal is your CV, it distorts your choices:

• You pick novelty over relevance to the local system.
• You favor short‑term measurable outcomes over long‑term partnership work.
• You may unconsciously treat patients as “data points” rather than people whose care is already under strain.

An honest self‑audit before you sign up:

1. If this project never gets published, would it still be ethically justified by its local benefits alone?
2. If the host community asked for all data to stay local and not be used for your CV, would you still participate?
3. Are you prepared to work on this for 12–24 months after the trip, not just the two weeks on the ground?

If your answers are all “no,” you are not in a good place ethically.

Measuring success beyond PubMed

Paradoxically, the projects that have the highest publication rates are usually those that were not designed purely to publish. They:

• Align directly with health system priorities identified by local leadership.
• Embed data collection in routine systems, not special one‑off surveys.
• Feed back results to local clinicians and administrators quickly.
• Lead to tangible program changes or quality improvements.

From a personal development perspective, that is the mindset that will not only yield better CV lines but also keep you grounded.

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7. Practical Strategy: If You Still Want to Publish from a Mission

You are not wrong to care about publication. You are wrong if that is the only axis you think about. The way to approach this is structured and transparent.

Concrete steps before you go

• Clarify in writing: research question, design, sample size target, and primary outcome.
• Ensure dual‑site ethics approvals are obtained or at least formally ruled not required.
• Define roles: who is first author, who is senior, who handles data, who leads analysis.
• Specify what data will be shared with the host institution and how soon.
• Choose a target journal tier in advance; it pushes you to appropriate rigor.

During the trip

• Collect fewer variables, but collect them well. Completeness > breadth.
• Keep a daily log of deviations, missing data issues, and context (this becomes your Methods and Limitations section later).
• Involve local clinicians in interpreting what you see—this improves construct validity.

After the trip

• Treat analysis and writing like a course with deadlines, not a side hobby.
• Share preliminary results (even basic descriptives) with local partners within 2–3 months.
• When published, ensure local co‑authors see the final paper and have the ability to use it in their own careers and local advocacy.

Deliver that cycle consistently, and your personal publication rate will be an outlier—in the good direction.

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8. Looking Ahead

The numbers are not kind. Most mission‑linked projects will never be cited, never guide policy, never even clear peer review. That is the current baseline.

You do not have to accept that as inevitable.

If you treat medical mission research with the same rigor you apply to domestic projects—clear questions, serious methods, real accountability, and genuine partnership—the data show that your odds of reaching print rise dramatically, and the ethical quality of your work rises with them.

You are still early in your global health journey. The next step is to decide what kind of work you want your name attached to: quick‑hit, low‑probability projects that clutter hard drives, or fewer, better‑designed studies that actually change practice.

Get that decision right now, and the rest—protocols, IRBs, manuscripts, even rejection letters—becomes part of a coherent trajectory rather than a random scramble for lines on a CV. The mission trips will end. Your publication record and your reputation will not. Treat them accordingly.

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FAQ

1. What publication rate should I consider “acceptable” for a mission‑based project portfolio?
For a well‑run academic–global health partnership with serious oversight, I would expect at least 40–50% of formally launched research projects (with protocols and ethics approval) to reach full manuscript submission, and a substantial fraction of those to be accepted somewhere. If a program cannot clearly document anything close to that, and especially if it has no records at all, you should be skeptical of its research culture.

2. Do quality improvement (QI) projects during missions “count” differently than research?
From an ethics standpoint, yes and no. QI that is truly local, focused on immediate system improvement, and not intended to generate generalizable knowledge can sometimes proceed outside traditional research frameworks. But the moment you start talking about publishing in peer‑reviewed journals, you are in research territory, and the same expectations around rigor, ethics, and publication responsibility apply. Calling something “QI” does not make the ethical calculus disappear.

3. Is it better to join an existing long‑term project or start my own new mission study?
The data and experience both say: join or extend an existing, well‑structured project whenever possible. Longitudinal studies and multi‑year QI efforts have far higher completion and publication rates because the infrastructure, relationships, and workflows are already in place. New, student‑initiated one‑off projects on a single short trip are exactly the profile that tends to vanish after data collection.

4. How do journals view short‑term mission research—are they biased for or against it?
Journals are not inherently biased against mission‑related work; they are biased against weak methods and shallow analysis, which unfortunately describes a significant fraction of submissions from short‑term projects. Strongly designed mission research with appropriate ethics, local authorship, and clear relevance to broader global health questions is absolutely publishable and often welcomed. But vague “we did a trip and here are some numbers” manuscripts face very low acceptance probabilities—and rightly so.