The perceived impact of publications on Neglected Tropical Zoonoses as measured by their impact factor

Abstract

We investigated whether papers on Neglected Tropical Zoonoses are published in journals with lower impact factors than research on diseases with a similar global health burden. We found that, despite being cited equally often, the papers on Neglected Tropical Zoonoses were published in journals with lower impact factors. The scopes of these journals are mainly restricted to Tropical medicine. A clustering analysis revealed that The Lancet, a high impact general medical journal, does pay attention to Neglected Tropical Zoonoses. We discuss our findings in the context of the ongoing discussion about the publishing policies of medical journals. Moreover, our findings stress the importance of recent suggestions that impact factors should not be used for assigning public funding to research (programs) on Neglected Tropical Zoonoses.