How to select publications on occupational health: the usefulness of Medline and the impact factor

OBJECTIVES Publications in the field of occupational health appear in various journals, including those of other medical specialties. This complicates the follow up of literature for specialists in this field. On the basis of Medline and the impact factor, this diversity was assessed, and a cost eff...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Occupational and environmental medicine (London, England) England), 2000-10, Vol.57 (10), p.706-709
Main Authors: Gehanno, J F, Thirion, B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
bibliographic databases
Bibliometrics
Biological and medical sciences
Citation indexes
Citations
Databases, Bibliographic
Environmental health
Humans
Impact factor
Impact factors
Information Storage and Retrieval - methods
Literature
Medical journals
Medical sciences
Medicine
MEDLINE
Miscellaneous
Occupational diseases
Occupational Health
Occupational health and safety
Occupational medicine
Online searching
Periodical indexing
Periodicals as Topic
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Toxicology
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Summary:OBJECTIVES Publications in the field of occupational health appear in various journals, including those of other medical specialties. This complicates the follow up of literature for specialists in this field. On the basis of Medline and the impact factor, this diversity was assessed, and a cost effective method for selecting the most pertinent journals in the practice of occupational health was proposed. METHODS A Medline search identified all the articles published in 1998 with occupational diseases or occupational exposures as the main topic. These articles were classified based on the journals in which they appeared. The journals were then compared according to their subject area, the number of articles that were published in the fields studied, and their impact factor. RESULTS The search retrieved 2247 articles, published in 577 different journals in 1998. Each journal published between one and 105 articles during this period (mean 3.89). However, only 1.4% of the journals accounted for more than 25% of the total articles published. More than half of the articles were published in journals dealing with general practice or medical specialties other than occupational health. Only 66% of retrieved journals had an impact factor, and more than 80% of the articles were published in journals with an impact factor
ISSN:1351-0711
1470-7926
DOI:10.1136/oem.57.10.706