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Home › Research › Open access

How much Alzheimer's research is free to read?

38.2% of the 22,865 studies in the library with a known access status are open access. For papers published in 2000 the share was 3.4%; by 2024 it was 63.8%. Which subjects, which journals and which kind of open access, below.

Sources. Whether a study is open or closed is recorded when we collect it from Europe PMC, OpenAlex or PubMed; 22,865 of 27,380 records say. The licence breakdown matches each study to Unpaywall's access status for the same paper, checked on 2026-10-10; 14,948 records match.

"Open" means a free, legal copy exists somewhere, not that the publisher's version is free. A study page on this site links to the free copy where one was found.

Open access by year of publication

Share of studies that are open access, by year published: 2000 3.4%; 2001 4.2%; 2002 3.0%; 2003 4.4%; 2004 4.6%; 2005 4.5%; 2006 4.9%; 2007 6.5%; 2008 12.7%; 2009 14.2%; 2010 13.9%; 2011 15.7%; 2012 21.6%; 2013 22.9%; 2014 26.1%; 2015 28.7%; 2016 35.7%; 2017 37.7%; 2018 43.3%; 2019 49.1%; 2020 54.3%; 2021 57.0%; 2022 59.1%; 2023 55.1%; 2024 63.8%; 2025 86.8%; 2026 48.8% 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2026 Year published Open access

Share of the library's studies that are open access, by year of publication, for years with at least 20 studies. The shaded band marks 2025 onward: the library was assembled recently and holds far more studies from those years, collected in ways that favour free full text, so the jump there is partly how the library was built, not only how publishing changed. Use the years before the band for the trend.

Every number in this chart, as a table
YearStudiesOpen accessShare
2000294103.4%
2001306134.2%
2002336103.0%
2003344154.4%
2004433204.6%
2005442204.5%
2006513254.9%
2007508336.5%
20085456912.7%
20095848314.2%
20106859513.9%
20116259815.7%
201269915121.6%
201378217922.9%
201472819026.1%
201579722928.7%
201679128235.7%
201789133637.7%
201895841543.3%
201994946649.1%
202096252254.3%
202189851257.0%
202279547059.1%
202362434455.1%
202455535463.8%
20253,2602,83086.8%
20261,82489048.8%

What kind of open access

Studies by open-access type: Gold 3,457; Hybrid 2,716; Diamond 352; Green 2,759; Bronze 1,687; Closed 3,977 Gold 3,457 3,457 studies (23.1%). published open access in an open-access journal Hybrid 2,716 2,716 studies (18.2%). open article in a subscription journal Diamond 352 352 studies (2.4%). open journal that charges no author fee Green 2,759 2,759 studies (18.5%). free copy in a repository Bronze 1,687 1,687 studies (11.3%). free on the publisher's site, no open licence Closed 3,977 3,977 studies (26.6%). behind a paywall

Unpaywall's access classification for the 14,948 library records that Unpaywall also holds. 10,971 of them (73.4%) have a free copy of some kind.

Interpretation: gold and hybrid together are the publisher-side route, usually paid for by the authors or their funders. Green is the author-side route, a manuscript deposited in a repository such as PubMed Central, which is what US public-funding rules require. Bronze is the fragile case, free today on the publisher's site with no licence that guarantees it stays free.

Open access by subject

Subjects with at least 20 studies carrying a status, ordered by open share. Differences here mostly reflect where and when a subject's papers were published, and which collection round brought them into the library.

Open-access share by library subject, from the study library
SubjectStudies with a statusOpenShare
TREM2 and immune genetics59831552.7%
Prevention trials75038050.7%
Biomarkers1,26660247.6%
Long-term cohort studies54225446.9%
Digital health tools1,09450145.8%
Inflammation and the immune system75633944.8%
Lewy body dementia56324243.0%
Health systems and care delivery55323542.5%
Mild cognitive impairment69929542.2%
Prevention and risk85235942.1%
Risk factors1,61367441.8%
Disease mechanisms1,05642940.6%
Treatments1,24848739.0%
Vascular contributions45117538.8%
Caregiving70027138.7%
How common it is49819138.4%
Cognitive tests and assessment75628437.6%
Disparities75027736.9%
Clinical safety62322536.1%
End-of-life care77628036.1%
Brain tissue and pathology51718034.8%
Getting a diagnosis79427634.8%
Tau biomarkers52918234.4%
Genetics1,13738633.9%
Brain scans and imaging1,06032330.5%
Costs and economics962728.1%
Drug development61015825.9%
Down syndrome and Alzheimer's66414521.8%
Risk genes beyond APOE75416421.8%
Clinical trials611219.7%
Hippocampus size on brain scans4925511.2%

The twelve journals the library cites most

Journal names are as recorded in the file, so the same journal can appear under two spellings with different shares; that is a fact about the records, and it is left visible rather than merged by guesswork.

Open-access share for the most frequent journals, from the study library
Journal, as recordedStudies with a statusOpenShare
Neurology1,18219516.5%
Alzheimer s & Dementia56552993.6%
Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association43010925.3%
Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD3886617.0%
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society3585916.5%
Brain : a journal of neurology3429828.7%
Archives of neurology30500.0%
Annals of neurology283217.4%
JAMA neurology2765620.3%
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America255114.3%
The Journal of biological chemistry24883.2%
Neurobiology of aging24793.6%

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Read these caveats first

  1. Two sources, two definitions. The year, subject and journal tables use the record's own open-access flag. The licence chart uses Unpaywall's classification for the records that could be matched. They agree closely but not exactly.
  2. Collection bias. The library's recent records were gathered in rounds that favoured papers with free full text, which inflates the open share for 2025 onward. The shaded band on the chart marks it.
  3. A snapshot. Access status changes: embargoes end, papers are deposited, publishers change policy. The lookup carries the date it was checked.
  4. This library, not the field. These are facts about the studies this site holds. See what the library's numbers show for how it was built.

Browse only the studies that are free to read →

Related: how big Alzheimer's studies are · APOE4 by the numbers · data and downloads