Book citations: influence of epidemiologic thought in the academic community

Abstract

Whilst their 'death' has often been certified, books remain highly important to most professions and academic disciplines. Analyses of citations received by epidemiologic texts may complement other views on epidemiology. The objective was to assess the number of citations received by some books of epidemiology and public health, as a first step towards studying the influence of epidemiological thought and thinking in academia. th of those included in this preliminary study. Other books which were influential in the classrooms collected comparatively less citations. Results offer a rich picture of the academic influences and trends of epidemiologic methods and reasoning on public health, clinical medicine and the other health, life and social sciences. They may contribute to assess epidemiologists' efforts to demarcate epidemiology and to assert epistemic authority, and to analyze some historical influences of economic, social and political forces on epidemiological research. KEYWORDS

Influence of local and regional publications in the production of public health research papers in Latin America

“…In SPM and ALAN on the other hand while journal articles were relevant, the amount of citations to books, technical reports and book chapters was also important. These findings coincide with those of Carvalho et al (2007), Barros (2006) and Porta et al (2006) when they reviewed the Portuguese literature in the field of public health. In ALAN gray literature and technical information also had an important role.…”

“…A high rate of citations to books, book chapters and grey literature has also been reported by other authors when analyzing public health journals (Carvalho et al 2007;Villar Á lvarez et al 2007). Porta et al (2006) for example have found the academic importance of citations to books in the sub-field of epidemiology.…”

Produção e citação em Saúde Coletiva: um olhar a partir dos periódicos Cadernos de Saúde Pública e Revista de Saúde Pública

“…Por exemplo, mesmo que livros e capítulos, do ponto de vista quantitativo, sejam menos freqüentes nas citações de artigos na área de epidemiologia, de modo algum isto deve ser interpretado como se os mesmos tivessem uma menor relevância na área. Isso fica evidente no trabalho de Porta et al 16 , que investigou as citações de livros em artigos de epidemiologia a partir da base de dados do Institute for Scientific Information/Thomson Scientific. Ainda que livros e capítulos constituam uma pequena fração das citações, os mais citados são, em geral, de natureza metodológica e, conseqüentemente, centrais à subárea.…”

“…Ainda que livros e capítulos constituam uma pequena fração das citações, os mais citados são, em geral, de natureza metodológica e, conseqüentemente, centrais à subárea. Segundo Porta et al 16 As diferenças nos padrões de citação entre as subáreas, particularmente evidentes em CSP, têm implicações significativas. Há um importante e longo debate na comunidade da Saúde Coletiva no Brasil em relação à especificidade da área e também à sua heterogeneidade interna 1,17,18,19 .…”

Trends in Citations to Books on Epidemiological and Statistical Methods in the Biomedical Literature

“…Based on academic lists of textbooks [3], [4], [16], books selected by The James Lind Library [17] and the People's Epidemiology Library [18], publishers' catalogues, books cited in other books, and our own teaching and research references, we first searched for citations to over 200 books on epidemiological and statistical methods and concepts. The books initially included were published from 1957 until 2010, and this is the main period of publication covered by the present study; nevertheless, we occasionally expanded the timeframe backwards to assess books published before 1957 that we deemed important texts for reference.…”