nal, the Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health. (AEOH).1 Articles in this Supplement traced the progression of EOH as a discipline during the 20th ...
Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010 C 2010 Derek R. Smith Copyright
Addendum
Highly Cited Articles in Environmental and Occupational Health, 1961–1974 Derek R. Smith, PhD, DrMedSc, MPH
This Addendum examines the literature of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH) between 1961 and 1974, a time period not originally included in last year’s 90th Anniversary Supplement due to incomplete coverage in the citation databases. In December 2009, a special historical Supplement was published to celebrate the 90th anniversary of our journal, the Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health (AEOH).1 Articles in this Supplement traced the progression of EOH as a discipline during the 20th century, with a particular focus on the international periodicals of our field. The evolution of 9 ‘core’ journals and their editorial boards were investigated: the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the American Journal of Industrial Medicine from the United States; Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Occupational Medicine (Oxford) from the United Kingdom; La Medicina del Lavoro, the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health and the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health from Europe; as well as the Journal of Occupational Health and Industrial Health from Japan.2 The AEOH’s 90-year history was also described in detail, including specific information on the journals’ editorial boards since 1919 and the way these board members, the journal, and the history of EOH itself in the United States were interwoven.3 Bibliometrics is a field of study that utilises mathematical and statistical techniques to investigate communication patterns in the distribution of information.4 Although research of this nature can help provide a broader understanding of disciplines,5 it is the subdiscipline of citation analysis and its derivatives that have risen to a position of prominence in modern academia.6 Citations are now deemed the ‘currency’ of modern science,7 with scientific articles designed to present information in human-readable aliquots.8 For these reasons, the AEOH’s 90th anniversary Supplement had a major focus on citation-based research. In the first article,9 highly cited 112
articles in EOH were identified for the time period between 1919, when the journal was initially founded as the Journal of Industrial Hygiene, to 1960, when it became the Archives of Environmental Health (AEH). Choosing the database for this study was not a straightforward process, however. Two of the most widely known bibliometric databases used for bibliometric analysis are the Thomson Reuters (formerly the Institute for Scientific Information [ISI]) Web of SciTM R R (WOS ) database, and the Scopus database, by ence Elsevier. Previous research has suggested that each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and none is the answer to all citation tracking needs.10 TM Nevertheless, Scopus was used for the first bibliometric article in the anniversary supplement, mainly because this database tracks articles cited in any PubMed-listed journal. TM Other researchers have also demonstrated how Scopus can be used as the sole data source for citation-based research in various fields,11 including in EOH.12 The second article in the anniversary Supplement focused on the longest running incarnation of our journal, the AEH, which published from 1960 to 2004. Because this article sought to examine biblioR metric trends for the longest possible time period, the WOS database was utilized. Of particular interest was longitudinal performance of the AEH’s impact factor, a marker of average citation frequency,13 which has been published in the ISI’s R R Journal Citation Reports (JCR ) since 1976.14 The earli R est available JCR data for the AEH was 1975, and hence, this year was chosen as the starting point. The second article therefore provided detailed citation analysis for the time period between 1975 and 2004.15 Although another popular Internet search engine known as Google Scholar may be useful for identifying ‘grey literature,’ it is often perceived to be quite time-consuming when compared to some of the more scientifically orientated databases,16 and as such, this method was not utilized in the anniversary Supplement. Since the anniversary Supplement was published, however, there has been some discussion regarding bibliometric Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health
Table 1.—-The Top 5 Highly-Cited Articles from the Archives of Environmental Health (1961–1974) Rank∗ 1
Rank∗∗ 4
2 3 4 5
2 1 3 5
∗ As
Author(s) Kasl SV, Cobb S17
Title of Article
Health behavior, illness behavior, and sick role behavior. I. Health and illness behaviour. Contaminated and natural lead environments of man. Patterson CC18 Gross P, Pfitzer EA, Tolker E, et al19 Experimental emphysema: its production with papain in normal and silicotic rats. Coronary heart disease, stroke, and aortic aneurysm. Hammond EC, Garfinkel L20 Maibach HI, Feldman RJ, Milby TH, Regional variation in percutaneous penetration in man. et al21 Pesticides. Alarie Y22 Irritating properties of airborne materials to the upper respiratory tract. Absorption and elimination of carbon monoxide by Peterson JE, Stewart RD23 inactive young men.
Year
Volume
Pages
1966
12
246–266
1965 1965
11 11
344–360 50–58
1969 1971
19 23
167–182 208–211
1966
13
433–449
1970
21
165–171
R identified by the Web of Science database. TM identified by Scopus.
∗∗ As
performance in years not covered by the original analysis, that is, between 1961 and 1974. The responses of colleagues to the paper in draft, including editors of other journals, challenged this exclusion and encouraged us to close the gap in R data are not available for this pecoverage. Although JCR riod, articles from the AEH were tracked on the ISI’s Science R R (SCI ) during this time, and can therefore be Citation Index R database. Any articles published in located using the WOS the AEH between 1961 and 1974 that were cited during or afTM ter 1999 will also have been tracked by Scopus . As a result, the current Addendum is designed to fill the gap, by identifying the most highly cited AEH articles from these hitherto ‘missing years.’ Although data can be presented from both databases due to overlaps in coverage, it also helps reveal potentially interesting differences in citation patterns in the AEH, in both the short and long term. Table 1 displays the top 5 most highly cited articles published in the AEH between 1961 and 1974. According to R database, the most highly cited article from this the WOS period is Kasl and Cobb’s paper on health behavior, illness behavior, and sick role behavior.17 This is followed by Patterson’s article on contaminated and natural lead environments of man,18 Gross and colleagues’ article on experimental emphysema and its production with papain in normal and silicotic rats,19 Hammond and Garfinkel’s article on coronary heart disease, stroke, and aortic aneurysm,20 and finally, Maibach and colleagues’ article on the regional variation in percutaneous penetration of pesticides in man.21 A search on TM the Scopus database located 3 of the same articles, namely those by Kasl and Cobb,17 Hammond and Garfinkel,20 and Maibach and colleagues.21 Interestingly however, although these articles were ranked first, fourth, and fifth, respectively, TM R search, a Scopus search found Maibach and in the WOS colleagues’ paper21 to be the most highly cited, followed by Hammond and Garfinkel.20 The third most highly cited article was a paper by Alarie22 describing irritating properties 2010, Vol. 65, No. 2
of airborne materials to the upper respiratory tract, with Kasl and Cobb’s aforementioned article17 being ranked fourth, and an article by Peterson and Stewart23 describing the absorption and elimination of carbon monoxide by inactive young men, ranked fifth. Figure 1 displays the proportion of all citations received by the 5 most highly cited at the AEH between 1961 and 1974, R database. Interestingly, the article by according to the WOS 18 Patterson had attracted within its first 10 years almost two thirds of all the citations it would ever receive. The remaining 4 highly cited articles attracted less than half of their total citations within the same time period. Figure 2 displays the citation lag time for highly cited articles published in the AEH between 1961 and 1974. The maximum citation density for these articles appeared to occur within 10 to 15 years of publication. Both figures utilized data extracted from the R database. WOS Overall, although this study has helped identify the most highly articles published in the AEH between 1961 and 1974, it has also illuminated some of the major technical issues faced when undertaking historical citation analysis of this nature. Clear limitations are encountered when searching for articles almost 50 years old, and indeed, this is the main reason why data from 1961 to 1974 were not included in the original Supplement. There is also a limit to how many citations can actually be received for older articles, given that R citations are only tracked for ISI-listed journals and WOS not all journals are on this list. For example, when the first article of the current analysis period was published (1961), R included just over 600 journals,24 although coverthe SCI age improved as the number of journals tracked by the ISI R 24 , increased. By 1966 there were 1500 journals in the SCI 13 this had increased to over 5000 by 2006, and by 2009, TM their database contained over 16,000 titles.25 The Scopus database currently covers nearly 18,000 journals,26 although it is believed to be somewhat limited in tracking articles 113
Fig. 1. Proportion of all citations received by highly cited articles at the Archives of Environmental Health, R database. 1961–1974. Raw data extracted from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science
22 20 18
Citations Received
16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
38
40
42
44
46
Years After Publication
Fig. 2. Citation lag time of highly cited articles at the Archives of Environmental Health, 1961–1974. Raw data R extracted from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database.
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published prior to 1996.27 As a result, it can be seen that no single database provides a definitive answer when searching for material published between 1961 and 1974. According to Burnham,28 although neither database is inclusive, both TM R compliment each other. Academic Scopus and the WOS debate on citation analysis itself,29 and which database to use when conducting it,30 continues. References 1. Smith DR. Creating Environmental & Occupational Health: a journal and the field it shaped, 1919–2009. Arch Environ Occup Health. 2009;64(Suppl):4–7. 2. Smith DR. The historical development of academic journals in occupational medicine, 1901–2009. Arch Environ Occup Health. 2009;64(Suppl):8–17. 3. Smith DR. Historical development of the Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health and its predecessor journals, 1919–2009. Arch Environ Occup Health. 2009;64(Suppl):18–31. 4. Diodato V. Dictionary of Bibliometrics. Binghampton: Haworth Press; 1994:185. 5. Rubin RE. Foundations of Library and Information Science. 2nd ed. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers; 2004:1–581. 6. Smith DR. Historical development of the journal impact factor and its relevance for occupational health. Ind Health. 2007;45:730–742. 7. Joseph KS. Quality of impact factors of general medical journals. BMJ. 2003;326:283. 8. Seringhaus MR, Gerstein MB. Publishing perishing? Towards tomorrow’s information architecture. BMC Bioinformatics. 2007;8:17. 9. Smith DR. Highly-cited articles in Environmental & Occupational Health, 1919–1960. Arch Environ Occup Health. 2009;64(Suppl): 32–42. 10. Bakkalbasi N, Bauer K, Glover J, Wang L. Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. Biomed Digit Libr. 2006;3:7. 11. Meho LI, Rogers Y. Citation counting, citation ranking, and h-index of human-computer interaction researchers: a comparison of Scopus and Web of Science. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol. 2008;59:1711–1726. 12. Przyluska J. International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health in world documentation services: the SCOPUS based analysis of citation. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2006;19:1–5.
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13. Garfield E. The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. JAMA. 2006;295:90–93. 14. Garfield E. Introducing Journal Citation Reports. Essays of an Information Scientist. 1976;2:556–557. 15. Smith DR. 30 years of citation analysis and impact factor trends at the Archives of Environmental Health, 1975–2004. Arch Environ Occup Health. 2009;64(Suppl):43–54. 16. Meho LI, Yang K. Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of Science versus Scopus and Google Scholar. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol. 2007;58:2105–2125. 17. Kasl SV, Cobb S. Health behavior, illness behavior, and sick role behavior. I. Health and illness behavior. Arch Environ Health. 1966;12:246–266. 18. Patterson CC. Contaminated and natural lead environments of man. Arch Environ Health. 1965;11:344–360. 19. Gross P, Pfitzer EA, Tolker E, Babyak MA, Kaschak M. Experimental emphysema: its production with papain in normal and silicotic rats. Arch Environ Health. 1965;11:50–58. 20. Hammond EC, Garfinkel L. Coronary heart disease, stroke, and aortic aneurysm. Arch Environ Health. 1969;19:167–182. 21. Maibach HI, Feldman RJ, Milby TH, Serat WF. Regional variation in percutaneous penetration in man. Pesticides. Arch Environ Health. 1971;23:208–211. 22. Alarie Y. Irritating properties of airborne materials to the upper respiratory tract. Arch Environ Health. 1966;13:433–449. 23. Peterson JE, Stewart RD. Absorption and elimination of carbon monoxide by inactive young men. Arch Environ Health. 1970;21:165–171. 24. Margolis J. Citation indexing and evaluation of scientific papers. Science. 1967;155:1213–1219. 25. Thomson Reuters Master Journal List. Available at: http://science. thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=MASTER. Accessed November 25, 2009. 26. Scopus Overview. Available at: http://www.info.scopus.com/detail/ what/ Accessed November 25, 2009. 27. Falagas ME, Pitsouni EI, Malietzis GA, Pappas G. Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar: strengths and weaknesses. FASEB J. 2008;22:338–42. 28. Burnham JF. Scopus database: a review. Biomed Digit Libr. 2006;3:1. 29. Smith DR. Citation analysis and impact factor trends of 5 core journals in occupational medicine, 1985–2006. Arch Environ Occup Health. 2008;63:114–122. 30. Kulkarni AV, Aziz B, Shams I, Busse JW. Comparisons of citations in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar for articles published in general medical journals. JAMA. 2009;302:1092–1096.
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