Assessing prevention research impact: a bibliometric analysis.
BACKGROUND
This study was undertaken to explore a bibliometric approach to assessing the impact of selected prevention research center (PRC) peer-reviewed publications.


METHODS
The 25 eligible PRCs were asked to submit 15 papers that they considered the most important to be published in the decade 1994-2004. Journal articles (n=227) were verified in 2004 and categorized: 73% were research reports, 10% discussion articles, 9% dissemination articles, and 7% review articles.


RESULTS
Only 189 articles (83%) were searchable via the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science databases for citation tracking in 2004. These 189 articles were published in 76 distinct journals and subsequently cited 4628 times (range 0 to 1523) in 1013 journals. Articles published before 2001 were cited a median of 14 times each. Publishing journals had a median ISI impact factor of 2.6, and ISI half-life of 7.2. No suitable benchmarks were available for comparison. The PRC influence factor (number of PRCs that considered a journal highly influential) was only weakly correlated with the ISI impact factor and was not correlated with half-life.


CONCLUSIONS
Conventional bibliometric analysis to assess the scientific impact of public health prevention research is feasible, but of limited utility because of omissions from ISI's databases, and because citation benchmarks for prevention research have not been established: these problems can and should be addressed. Assessment of impact on public health practice, policy, or on the health of populations, will require more than a bibliometric approach.
Prevention Research Centers Program, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. afranks@cdc.gov
Adele L
AL
Franks
Eduardo J
EJ
Simoes
Rajdeep
R
Singh
Barbara
B
Sajor Gray
D000047:Academies and Institutes; D015706:Bibliometrics; D003153:Community Health Services; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D017712:Peer Review, Research; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D011314:Preventive Health Services