Influenza: a scientometric and density-equalizing analysis

Abstract

BackgroundNovel influenza in 2009 caused by H1N1, as well as the seasonal influenza, still are a challenge for the public health sectors worldwide. An increasing number of publications referring to this infectious disease make it difficult to distinguish relevant research output. The current study used scientometric indices for a detailed investigation on influenza related research activity and the method of density equalizing mapping to make the differences of the overall research worldwide obvious. The aim of the study was to compare scientific effort over the time as well as geographical distribution including the cooperation on national and international level.MethodsTherefore, publication data was retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) of Thomson Scientific. Subsequently the data was analysed in order to show geographical distributions and the development of the research output over the time.The query retrieved 51,418 publications that are listed in WoS for the time interval from 1900 to 2009. There is a continuous increase in research output and general citation activity especially since 1990.ResultsThe identified all in all 51,418 publications were published by researchers from 151 different countries. Scientists from the USA participate in more than 37 percent of all publications, followed by researchers from the UK and Germany with more than five percent. In addition, the USA is in the focus of international cooperation.In terms of number of publications on influenza, the Journal of Virology ranks first, followed by Vaccine and Virology. The highest impact factor (IF 2009) in this selection can be established for The Lancet (30.75). Robert Webster seems to be the most prolific author contributing the most publications in the field of influenza.ConclusionsThis study reveals an increasing and wide research interest in influenza. Nevertheless, citation based-declaration of scientific quality should be considered critically due to distortion by self-citation and co-authorship.

Density equalizing mapping of the global tuberculosis research architecture

“…Similar analyses have been carried out on yellow fever [20], influenza [21] and hepatitis B [22]. Only a number of 5053 publications on yellow fever could be identified [20] in the WoS, whereat the USA have had also the highest publication rate with 42% (751 publications), followed by Brazil with 203 publication, after all [20].…”

“…As to that a number of 51,418 publications on influenza could be identified in the WoS that have been published from 151 different countries. Again, the USA accounted for the highest number of publications (19,194), followed by the UK (4614) and it has also been confirmed as main part of the international network too, together with Canada and Japan [21]. As another major infectious disease is hepatitis B [22] has been analyzed regarding the research output, but only in a relatively short time interval of 40 years from 1971 to 2011 so far.…”

Snakebite Envenoming – A Combined Density Equalizing Mapping and Scientometric Analysis of the Publication History

“…Due to the exclusion of Taiwan from the World Bank, the data was retrieved from the World Factbook that includes Taiwan [34,35]. Epidemiologic indices were used from the estimates of Kasturiratne et al [4].…”

“…An analysis of international cooperations was carried out to assess research networks [36][35]. In brief, a bilateral cooperation between two countries was defined when at least one author originates from one country and at least one other author from a second country.…”

Stem Cell Therapy for Myocardial Infarction 2001–2013 Revisited

“…To better illustrate the worldwide distribution of important hot-spots of stem cell research, we used the methodology of density equalizing maps. Density equalizing maps have previously been used predominantly in epidemiological studies [11] but also in scientometric studies in other disciplines such as orthopedics [12,13], asthma research [14] and infectiology [15,16]. In this current study, we used a comparable scientometric approach to visualize the worldwide research activity on stem cell therapy for ischemic heart disease.…”