Five decades of contraception research – The legacy of Daniel R Mishell Jr

Objective: The death of Dan Mishell Jr. - a true pioneer in reproductive health, reproductive endocrinology, infertility and family planning - was a great loss for the academic and clinical research community. Dan Mishell was the founder and editor of the Journal Contraception for over 43 years and his work has influenced the lives of women all over the world. As a tribute to his contribution to medicine, we have reviewed the great virtue by which he edited Contraception that coined birth control and family planning for nearly half a century. Methods: Using density equalizing mapping, we analyzed and illustrated the global landscape of research published in Contraception under the editorial policy of the editor-in-chief Dan Mishell. Results: In contrast to numerous other areas of biomedical sciences that are only dominated by highly industrialized countries such as the US, the UK or Japan, Mishell's legacy of more than 6400 articles shows that he opened the field of academic research and clinical practice to a global audience. Next to articles from the US - as the leading country in almost every area of science - India and China appeared in very prominent positions in the world map of contraception research. Combined classical scientometric and novel visualizing techniques also identified a dense global research network, which generated the articles that have been published in Contraception during four decades of Dan Mishell's editorial leadership. Conclusion: The world owes gratitude to this pioneer of contraception research.