Bibliometric analysis of global Lassa fever research (1970-2017): a 47 - year study

• Published in: BMC infectious diseases 2018-12, Vol.18 (1), p.639-639, Article 639
• Main Authors: Okoroiwu, Henshaw Uchechi, López-Muñoz, Francisco, Povedano-Montero, F Javier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Africa, Western - epidemiology; Analysis; Bibliometric analysis; Bibliometrics; Biomedical Research - statistics & numerical data; Biomedical Research - trends; Citation indexes; Co authorship; Collaboration; Databases, Factual - statistics & numerical data; Databases, Factual - trends; Discipline; Disease control; Documents; Epidemics; Epidemiology; Fever; Geography; Government agencies; Health aspects; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Infectious diseases; Lassa; Lassa fever; Lassa Fever - epidemiology; Lassa research; Medical research; Productivity; Public health; Publishing - statistics & numerical data; Publishing - trends; Researchers; Scientific papers; Social network analysis; Social networks; Studies; Virology
• ISSN: 1471-2334; 1471-2334
• DOI: 10.1186/s12879-018-3526-6

Lassa fever has been a public health concern in the West African sub-region where it is endemic and a latent threat to the world at large. We investigated the trend in Lassa fever research using bibliometric approach. We used the SCOPUS database employing "Lassa fever" as search descriptor. The most common bibliometric indicators were applied for the selected publications. The number of scientific research articles retrieved for Lassa fever research from 1970 to 2017 was 1101. The growth of publications was more linear (r = 0.67) than exponential (r = 0.53). The duplication time of the scientific articles was 9.19 years. Small number of authors were responsible for bulk of the article production (transience index of 78.89%). The collaboration index was 4.59 per paper. The Bradford core consisted of 19 journals in which Journal of Virology was at the top (4.6%). Majority of the output were from USA government agencies. United States was the most productive country. Joseph B. McCormick was the most productive author, while New England Journal of Medicine published the two most cited articles. The growth of scientific Literature on Lassa fever was of linear pattern with high transient authors indicating low productivity and non-specialized authors from other related areas publishing sporadically. This study provides a helpful reference for medical virologists, epidemiologist, policy decision makers, academics and Lassa fever researchers.