Most-cited public health articles of scientific journals from Brazil

Milena Maria de Araújo Lima Barbosa Angela Maria Belloni Cuenca Karoline de Oliveira Ivan França Junior Maria do Carmo Avamilano Alvarez Larissa Yuko Omae About the authors

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE

To describe the most-cited articles in public health scientific journals edited in Brazil.

METHODS

Articles published between 2008 and 2010 by public health journals edited in Brazil and indexed in the Scopus database were included, and citations received up to five years after publication were ranked. We studied a total of 105 articles, as the last seven articles shared the same number of citations and so were given the same rank.

RESULTS

The most-cited articles received a median of 28 citations, and the distribution ranged from 22 to 95 citations. These articles describe advances in the areas of Epidemiology (74%), Health Policies, Planning and Administration (19%), and Social and Human Sciences in Health (7%). Only half mentioned that they have received funding. About 75% of the articles were written by three or more authors and 90%, by authors affiliated to public institutions such as universities and government organizations. Fifteen individuals were responsible for authoring or coauthoring three or more of the 105 articles studied. The journals Cadernos de Saúde Pública, Revista de Saúde Pública, and Ciência & Saúde Coletiva have published the vast majority of the most-cited articles in the area (94%).

CONCLUSIONS

In Brazil, the most-cited articles in public health mainly report Epidemiology research, are written by groups of authors and by researchers affiliated to public institutions and are published in journals with a greater impact. Periodical analyses of these data can show potential changes in the characteristics of articles that most attract public health scientists.

Periodicals as Topic; Citation Databases; Public Health; Bibliometrics

INTRODUCTION

Citations are considered an indirect measurement of the contribution of an article to the knowledge generated in the field, i.e., the link between the finding of the investigation and its importance for science11. Hamilton DP. Publishing by-- and for? -- the Numbers: new evidence raises the possibility that a majority of scientific papers make negligible contributions to knowledge. Science.1990;250(4986):1331-2. https://doi.org/10.1126/Science.2255902
https://doi.org/10.1126/Science.2255902...
. Therefore, citations have been widely used and valued to provide indices and impact indicators in science22. Slyder JB, Stein BR, Sams BS, Walker DM, Bealey BJ, Feldhaus JJ, et al. Citation pattern and lifespan: a comparison of discipline, institution, and individual. Scientometrics. 2011;89:955. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0467-x
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0467-...
. Garfield and Welljams-Dorof33. Garfield E, Welljams-Dorof A. Of noble class: a citation perspective on high impact research authors. Theor Med. 1992;13(2):117-35. have identified a significant correlation between the quality and relevance of an article and the number of citations it receives.

By analyzing articles that exert the greatest influence on a field of knowledge, we identified where, how, and by which scientists this field moves forward. Thus, several studies have evaluated highly-cited articles in specific fields such as Rheumatology44. Perez-Cabezas V, Ruiz-Molinero C, Carmona-Barrientos I, Herrera-Viedma E, Cobo MJ, Moral-Munoz JA. Highly cited papers in rheumatology: identification and conceptual analysis. Scientometrics. 2018;116(1):555-68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2712-z
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2712-...
, Gastroenterology55. Tang X, Gong W, Yuan F, Li R, Han X, Huang S, et al. Top-cited articles in digestive system disease from 1950 to 2013. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2016;31(1):107-11. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgh.13032
https://doi.org/10.1111/jgh.13032...
, Psychiatry66. Mazhari S. The 100 top-cited articles published in psychiatry journals. J Psychiatr Pract. 2013;19(4):327-38. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.pra.0000432604.06835.da
https://doi.org/10.1097/01.pra.000043260...
, Surgery77. Bayley M, Brooks F, Tong A, Hariharan K. The 100 most cited papers in foot and ankle surgery. Foot (Edinb). 2014;24(1):11-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foot.2013.11.003
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, among others. The most-cited articles represent a high degree of research impact and an effective investment of resources88. Ranasinghe I, Shojaee A, Bikdeli B, Gupta A, Chen R, Ross JS, et al. Poorly cited articles in peer-reviewed cardiovascular journals from 1997 to 2007: analysis of 5-year citation rates. Circulation. 2015;131(20):1755-62. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.114.015080
https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.1...
.

Public health is a field of production of multi- and interdisciplinary scientific knowledge99. Alvarenga AT, Sommerman A, Alvarez AMS. Congressos internacionais sobre transdisciplinaridade: reflexões sobre emergências e convergências de ideias e ideais na direção de uma nova ciência moderna. Saude Soc. 2005;14(3):9-29. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-12902005000300003
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-1290200500...
, based on epidemiology, social and human sciences in health, and policies, planning and administration in health1010. Iriart JAB, Deslandes SF, Martin D, Carmargo Jr KR, Carvalho MS, Coeli CM. A avaliação da produção científica nas subáreas da Saúde Coletiva: limites do atual modelo e contribuições para o debate. Cad Saude Publica. 2015;31(10):2137-47. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X00065515
https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X0006551...
. This field provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate citation performance among areas. Smith and Leggat1111. Smith DR, Leggat PA. Ten citation classics from the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. Aust N Z J Public Health. 2008;32(2):105-6. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1753-6405.2008.00183.x
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1753-6405.2008...
evaluated the 10 most-cited articles in public health, but the authors included articles from only one journal.

In Brazil, few studies have addressed the question of citations, and they are usually from the areas of Information Science, Bibliometrics, and Scientometrics1212. Packer AL, Meneghini R. Articles with authors affliliated to Brazilian institutions published from 1994 to 2003 with 100 or more citations: I The weight of international collaboration and the role of the networks. An Acad Bras Cienc. 2006;78(4):841-53. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-37652006000400017
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-3765200600...
. In specific fields such as public health, some authors, such as Coimbra Jr1515. Coimbra Jr CEA. Produção científica e impacto em Saúde Coletiva. Cad Saude Publica. 2004;20(4):878-9. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2004000400001
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X200400...
, Barata1616. Barata RB. SciELO Saúde Pública: o desempenho dos Cadernos de Saúde Pública e da Revista de Saúde Pública. Cad Saude Publica. 2007;23(12):3031-40. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2007001200025
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X200700...
, Iriart et al.1010. Iriart JAB, Deslandes SF, Martin D, Carmargo Jr KR, Carvalho MS, Coeli CM. A avaliação da produção científica nas subáreas da Saúde Coletiva: limites do atual modelo e contribuições para o debate. Cad Saude Publica. 2015;31(10):2137-47. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X00065515
https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X0006551...
, Cuenca et al.1717. Cuenca AMB, Barbosa MMAL, Oliveira K, Quinta FP, Alvarez MCA, França Jr I. Artigos não citados nas revistas brasileiras em Saúde Pública. Rev Saude Publica. 2017;51:114. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/s1518-8787.2017051000442
http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/s1518-8787.20...
, have been analyzing the citations attributed to journals and articles, but few of them address the most-cited ones.

This study aimed to characterize the most-cited articles published in public health journals edited in Brazil. Our findings should help students, young researchers, and readers in general to become familiar with the authors, institutions, and journals that have made a leading contribution to public health in Brazil. Also, this study may provide researchers, research funding agencies, and university administrators with insights into the research trends in this field.

METHODS

Following the trend of bibliometric studies considering the so-called “top 100” of an area of knowledge, we present here the most-cited articles published in Brazilian public health journals.

To assess those articles, we selected the public health scientific journals that are edited in Brazil, according to the Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva (Abrasco – Brazilian Association of Collective Health), which have been indexed in the Scopus database since 2008. This database was chosen because, besides being one of the main sources of bibliometric data, it indexes more journals edited in Brazil. The initial year was chosen to increase the number of journals represented since fewer journals were edited in Brazil on this database until 2007. Thus, the following journals were selected: Cadernos de Saúde Pública; Ciência & Saúde Coletiva; História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos; Interface: Communicação, Saúde, Educação; Physis; Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia; Revista de Saúde Pública; and Saúde & Sociedade.

For the retrieval of the articles, we searched for records classified by Scopus as original articles or review articles, published between 2008 and 2010. The final year was considered to include citations received up to five years after publication since citations usually do not occur soon after publication. So, for articles published in 2008, we studied citations received until 2013, and so on. This standardization provides, for all articles, the same time availability to receive citations. Initially, we retrieved 3,242 records and, after the age adjustment, we filtered those articles in descending order of citations and selected the 100 most-cited ones. However, seven papers ranked last in the classification, as they contained the same number of citations (22 citations). Overall, in this study, we included the 105 most cited articles.

We performed the descriptive analysis of the articles included according to the following variables: citation ranking, publication year, publication language, publication type, thematic category, journal title, number of authors (one, two, three, or more), authors’ names, and funding. The type of publication was classified into two stages: first, we evaluated whether the article was methodological or not; second, if it was not methodological, we evaluated whether it was an original study or a review. The thematic addressed in the articles was based on the categories defined by Abrasco for the area of Collective Health, namely: epidemiology; policies, planning, and administration in health; and social and human sciences in health. The first author’s affiliation was classified as a public university, private university, hospital, governmental institution, or non-governmental institution. The funding institutions were categorized into: development agency, such as Research Support Foundations (FAP) and Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); national governing bodies, such as ministries and state departments; foreign or national institutions, such as World Health Organization; and scientific associations or societies.

RESULTS

Among the 3,242 articles published between 2008 and 2010 by the journals included in this study, the most-cited articles (n = 105) received between 22 and 95 citations, with a median of 28 (p25 = 24 and p75 = 36). The 105 most-cited articles are listed in the Table 1.

Table 1
The most-cited articles of public health scientific journals edited in Brazil.

As described in Table 2, of the 105 articles, most were original articles (70%), in the area of Epidemiology (74%), written by three or more authors (74%) and published in English (57%). All have abstracts in Portuguese and English, and 34 (32%) also have an Abstract in Spanish. It is worth noting that, despite standardizing the citation window (citations up to five years after publication), we identified a few of the most-cited articles published in 2010.

Table 2
Characteristics of the most-cited articles in the public health area between 2008 and 2010. (n = 105)

Cadernos de Saúde Pública, Revista de Saúde Pública, and Ciência & Saúde Coletiva have published the vast majority of the most-cited articles in the area (94%). Another group is constituted by the Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia, Interface, História, Ciência & Saúde, Physis, and Saúde e Sociedade, the articles in which seldom if ever feature among the most-cited ones. The distribution of the most-cited articles according to the journal is shown in Table 3.

Table 3
Distribution of the most-cited articles by public health journal. (n = 105)

Regarding the affiliations of the first author of each article (Table 4), public universities represented 67% of the institutions. Authors were also affiliated to governmental organizations (23%) – such as the Fiocruz Foundation, the Ministry of Health and health departments – and to private undergraduate institutions (6%).

Table 4
Institutional affiliation of the first author of ≥ 3 the most-cited articles published by public health journals edited in Brazil between 2008 and 2010. (n = 105)

Regarding research funding, 52 articles reported some kind of funding; of these, half reported support from two or more institutions. The most frequently mentioned funding agencies or institutions were FAP (35/52) and CNPq (31/52). Support from foreign agencies was mentioned in 25 of the 52 articles (48%). Brazilian government agencies accounted for 21% (11/52) of these grants, and a research incentive association accounted for 1 grant (data not shown in table).

In relation to authorship and coauthorship, in total, 388 individuals were responsible for authoring or coauthoring these articles. Table 5 shows the most-productive researchers (n = 15). In addition, eight other researchers were responsible for 1 authorship and 1 coauthorship; 26, for two coauthorships; 84, for 1 authorship; and 255, for 1 coauthorship (data not shown in table).

Table 5
Authors who contributed to ≥ 3 most-cited articles of public health journals edited in Brazil and published between 2008 and 2010, according to authorship, coauthorship and the sum of both.

DISCUSSION

The number of citations received by public health articles differs significantly from that found by studies in diverse subjects and countries, varying from about four thousand citations received55. Tang X, Gong W, Yuan F, Li R, Han X, Huang S, et al. Top-cited articles in digestive system disease from 1950 to 2013. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2016;31(1):107-11. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgh.13032
https://doi.org/10.1111/jgh.13032...
to one thousand1818. Shadgan B, Roig M, HajGhambari B, Reid WD. Top-cited articles in rehabilitation. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2010;91(5):806-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2010.01.011
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2010.01.0...
, from the medical field, but over an extended period, stretching back to the 1950s. In a bibliometric study of systematic reviews, Royle et al.1919. Royle P, Kandala NB, Barnard K, Waugh N. Bibliometrics of systematic reviews: analysis of citation rates and journal impact factors. Systematic Rev. 2013;2:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74
https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74...
found an average of 26.5 citations after four years of publication. The authors used the same information source, the Scopus database, and a similar analysis period (year of 2008) to that of our study. In our study, median citations were equal to 28. Although we included a period longer than that of Royle et al.1919. Royle P, Kandala NB, Barnard K, Waugh N. Bibliometrics of systematic reviews: analysis of citation rates and journal impact factors. Systematic Rev. 2013;2:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74
https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74...
, which could overestimate the total citations of the articles of our study compared with the one of Royle et al.1919. Royle P, Kandala NB, Barnard K, Waugh N. Bibliometrics of systematic reviews: analysis of citation rates and journal impact factors. Systematic Rev. 2013;2:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74
https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74...
, this overestimation would be counterbalanced since systematic reviews tend to receive more citations2020. Patsopoulos NA, Analatos AA, Ioannidis JPA. Relative citation impact of various study designs in the Health Sciences. JAMA. 2005;293(19):2362-6. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.19.2362
https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.19.2362...
,2121. Bhandari M, Busse J, Devereaux PJ, Montori VM, Swiontkowski M, Tornetta P, III, et al. Factors associated with citation rates in the orthopedic literature. Can J Surg. 2007 [cited 2017 Febr 15];50(2):119-23. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2384258/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article...
. In fact, the number of citations potentially reflects the process of creation and dissemination, which differs between the areas of knowledge2222. Pendlebury DA. Science, citation and funding [letter to the editor]. Science. 1991 [cited 2017 Febr 15];251:1410-1. Available from: http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/pendleburyscience1991.html
http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers...
, the periods covered and the data sources, among other factors.

Less than 5% of the most-cited articles have only one author, while most (74%) have three or more authors. This result corroborates the literature on the positive influence of the number of authors per article on the number of citations received2323. Figg WD, Dunn L, Liewehr DJ, Steinberg SM, Thurman PW, Barrett JC, et al. Scientific collaboration results in higher citations rates of published articles. Pharmacotherapy. 2006;26(6):759-67. https://doi.org/10.1592/phco.26.6.759
https://doi.org/10.1592/phco.26.6.759...
. Regarding language, more than half were published in English (part of them, bilingual). Clearly, it denotes the effort for internationalization by the journals edited in Brazil.

The proportion of the most-cited articles reduced from 2008 to 2010. Certainly, the more recent, the less time the article would be found, read and quoted more often and by more authors. However, for all articles, we counted citations received up to five years after publication, reducing the bias of publication year. Thus, this result may have been due to the number of article journals published during the years considered in this study. In fact, the two journals that contributed the most to the list of the most-cited articles published a total of 605 articles in 2008, 521 in 2009, and 422 in 2010; that is, the number of most-cited articles decreased as the total of articles also decreased.

As for the influence of the impact factor of journals on the citations, there are controversies. According to Callaham et al.2424. Callaham M, Wears RL, Webwe E. Journal prestige, publication bias, and other characteristics associated with citation of published studies in peer-reviewed journals. JAMA. 2002;287(21):2847-50. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.287.21.2847
https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.287.21.2847...
, the greater the impact of the journal, the more its articles are cited. The authors reported the impact factor is more influential even than variables related to the quality of the investigation, such as the study design and other methodological aspects. As a matter of fact, the two journals with the highest impact factors (SJR 2010 for Cadernos de Saúde Pública = 0.788 and for Revista de Saúde Pública = 0.817) published 83% of the most-cited articles between 2008 and 2010. Shadgan et al.1818. Shadgan B, Roig M, HajGhambari B, Reid WD. Top-cited articles in rehabilitation. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2010;91(5):806-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2010.01.011
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2010.01.0...
, when evaluating the most-cited articles in the medical field, also found most of these were published by journals with a high impact factor. For Larivière and Gingras2525. Larivière V, Gingras Y. The impact factor’s Matthew effect: a natural experiment in Bibliometrics. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol. 2010;61(2):424-7. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21232
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21232...
, this influence can result both from the better dissemination of the journals that have a greater impact, and from the citing researchers’ perception that the articles published in these journals have higher quality.

Slyder et al.22. Slyder JB, Stein BR, Sams BS, Walker DM, Bealey BJ, Feldhaus JJ, et al. Citation pattern and lifespan: a comparison of discipline, institution, and individual. Scientometrics. 2011;89:955. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0467-x
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0467-...
, however, emphasize that being published by high impact journals does not guarantee that the article is highly cited since the citation rate varies greatly between articles. This indicates that other features in these articles make them attract more citations. The study by Royle et al.1919. Royle P, Kandala NB, Barnard K, Waugh N. Bibliometrics of systematic reviews: analysis of citation rates and journal impact factors. Systematic Rev. 2013;2:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74
https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-2-74...
corroborates this information by showing that, although impact metrics have explained more than half of the variation in citations, they do not accurately represent the number of citations of individual articles.

It should be noted that, when analyzing the journals in which the most-cited articles were published, a consistency can be seen between the order of the most-cited articles and the number of those that did not receive any citations1717. Cuenca AMB, Barbosa MMAL, Oliveira K, Quinta FP, Alvarez MCA, França Jr I. Artigos não citados nas revistas brasileiras em Saúde Pública. Rev Saude Publica. 2017;51:114. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/s1518-8787.2017051000442
http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/s1518-8787.20...
, i.e., the journals that published more articles with the highest number of citations were also the ones that published fewer articles that have never been cited.

Regarding the sub-areas, Iriart et al.1010. Iriart JAB, Deslandes SF, Martin D, Carmargo Jr KR, Carvalho MS, Coeli CM. A avaliação da produção científica nas subáreas da Saúde Coletiva: limites do atual modelo e contribuições para o debate. Cad Saude Publica. 2015;31(10):2137-47. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X00065515
https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X0006551...
, in a recent evaluation of the scientific production of postgraduate programs in the public health area, found a similar tendency in the proportion of researchers in each discipline: 49% belong to Epidemiology; 20%, to Health Policies, Planning and Management; and 17%, to the Social and Human Sciences in Health. This proportion is reflected, in this study, by the distribution of the most-cited articles according to the sub-areas.

The search for institutional excellence has aroused interest in identifying the institutions performing best in the development of science in a country, or in a specific area. In public health in Brazil, public universities stand out as science generators. Packer and Meneghini1212. Packer AL, Meneghini R. Articles with authors affliliated to Brazilian institutions published from 1994 to 2003 with 100 or more citations: I The weight of international collaboration and the role of the networks. An Acad Bras Cienc. 2006;78(4):841-53. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-37652006000400017
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-3765200600...
, in 2006, had already identified the influence of public universities on the impact of articles. Both in this paper and in the study by Packer and Meneghini1212. Packer AL, Meneghini R. Articles with authors affliliated to Brazilian institutions published from 1994 to 2003 with 100 or more citations: I The weight of international collaboration and the role of the networks. An Acad Bras Cienc. 2006;78(4):841-53. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-37652006000400017
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-3765200600...
, the presence of private higher education institutions in the most-cited articles was also observed, although to a lesser extent.

In Brazil, public health research is subsidized by development agencies, national government agencies and mainly by public resources2626. Guimarães R. Pesquisa em saúde no Brasil: contexto e desafios. Rev Saude Publica. 2006; 40 nº espec:3-10. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-8910200600040000
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-8910200600...
,2727. Cuenca AMB, Noronha DP, Ueno HM, Kobayashi KM. Periódicos brasileiros de saúde pública: a questão do financiamento. INCID Rev Cienc Inf Doc. 2011;2(2):101-10. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-2075.v2i2p101-110
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-2075....
, as corroborated by our study. We can infer that this is a characteristic of developing countries, such as Brazil, and of a multidisciplinary area, such as public health, while private financing is correlated with the highest citation index in the area of cardiology in developed countries2828. Khan MS, Usman MS, Fatima K, Hashmani N, Siddiqi TJ, Riaz H, et al. Characteristics of highly cited articles in interventional cardiology. Am J Cardiol. 2017;120(11):2100-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.amjcard.2017.08.030
https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.amjcard.2017....
. However, some journals do not adopt the requirement of funding acknowledgments, and this fact may have led to the large proportion of articles classified as being without financial support2727. Cuenca AMB, Noronha DP, Ueno HM, Kobayashi KM. Periódicos brasileiros de saúde pública: a questão do financiamento. INCID Rev Cienc Inf Doc. 2011;2(2):101-10. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-2075.v2i2p101-110
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-2075....
.

As for the type of article among the most-cited, we selected a priori the categories original articles and reviews to ensure research articles, supposing that editorials, opinions, comments, among others are not expected to receive enough citations to be among the most-cited publications. In this study, we found an opinion article among the most-cited, besides debates, forums, and notes, which were then categorized by the authors according to the classifications considered in this investigation (original, methodological, or review). This is an error that can be attributed to the indexer or editor of the journal. This is a limitation of our study, since other records not indexed as original articles or reviews may have had more citations than the 105 articles included here.

Another limitation is that we used only the Scopus database in data collection. However, this is the database that indexes most journals of public health edited in Brazil, which is why it was chosen. Also, our findings are limited by the fact that we have not assessed the quality of the citations.

Additionally, we emphasize that the object of this study was the scientific journals edited in Brazil and their respective articles. As the literature on public health tends to be dispersed in journals from other areas (Medicine, Psychology, Oral Health, etc.), our findings are limited to a part of the Brazilian scientific production. Future investigation evaluating public health articles published by journals from other areas of knowledge may provide a broader picture of the scientific production in this area.

CONCLUSION

This panorama of the most-cited articles in the field of public health helps us to understand the science produced in Brazil in this field of knowledge. The most frequently cited articles are written by groups of authors and researchers affiliated to public institutions, belong to the Epidemiology sub-area, and are published in journals that have a greater impact. This may inspire new generations of scientists as to the characteristics that will potentially increase the impact of their research. Periodical analyses such as these can show possible changes in the characteristics of articles that most attract public health scientists. Future investigation assessing the citing articles of public health journals could clarify the quality of the citations. Also, future studies evaluating public health articles published by journals from other areas of knowledge may provide a broader picture of the scientific production in this area.

Acknowlegments

To Fernanda Paranhos Quinta, for the contribution to data collection.

REFERENCES

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  • Funding: Universidade de São Paulo (Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação Científica - scholarship to KO; Programa Unificado de Bolsas - scholarship to LYO).

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    23 Sept 2019
  • Date of issue
    2019

History

  • Received
    1 Mar 2019
  • Accepted
    15 Apr 2019
Faculdade de Saúde Pública da Universidade de São Paulo São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: revsp@org.usp.br