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Impact factor in AIDS and other infectious diseases
R Mancini1, E Girardi, C Costa
1Office of the Scientific Director, National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani-IRCCS, Rome, Italy. biblioteca@spallanzani.roma.it
Journal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents
|November 6, 2001
Summary
The impact factor (IF) helps evaluate scientific journals. Analysis showed high-impact infectious disease journals published more on HIV/AIDS, but other journals also showed significant interest.
Area of Science:
- Bibliometrics
- Medical Informatics
- Public Health
Background:
- The impact factor (IF) is a key metric for assessing scientific journal quality and researcher productivity.
- Selecting appropriate journals for manuscript submission is crucial for researchers.
- Understanding journal content focus, particularly on critical health topics, is important for scientific dissemination.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the proportion of articles on HIV/AIDS in high-impact factor journals in 1998.
- To compare the focus on HIV/AIDS across different journal types: infectious disease, specialty, and general medicine.
Main Methods:
- A bibliometric analysis was performed using the MEDLINE database.
- Searches were conducted for articles published in 1998 within selected high-impact factor journals.
- Journals were categorized into infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS-specific, specialty, and general medicine.
Main Results:
- Journals with the highest impact factors and a focus on infectious diseases demonstrated the greatest volume of HIV/AIDS-related articles.
- Specialty journals and general medicine periodicals also contributed a notable percentage of their 1998 output to HIV/AIDS research.
- The IF correlated with the presence of HIV/AIDS research, particularly in specialized fields.
Conclusions:
- High-impact factor journals, especially those in infectious diseases, are significant venues for publishing HIV/AIDS research.
- The study highlights the widespread interest in HIV/AIDS across various medical journal categories.
- Impact factor serves as a useful, albeit not exclusive, indicator for identifying journals with substantial content on significant health issues like HIV/AIDS.