ArticleBMJ global health2023
The impact of COVID-19 on global health journals: an analysis of impact factor and publication trends.
Article in BMJ global health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific publications in the field of hernia surgery: a brief bibliometric analysis.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2026Article
- Mapping inequities in global vaccine sentiment research.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Impact Factor Trends of Top Obstetrics and Gynecology Journals During COVID-19.Interactive journal of medical research · 2025Article
- A Scoping Review of Prevention Classification in Mental Health: Examining the Application of Caplan's and Gordon's Prevention Frameworks (2018-2024).Journal of prevention (2022) · 2025Article
- Influence of COVID- 19 pandemic on impact factors of top biomedical journals.Irish journal of medical science · 2025Article
- Factors for predicting time to acceptance in the journal of the American academy of orthopaedic surgeons.European journal of orthopaedic surgery & traumatology : orthopedie traumatologie · 2025Article
- Improving diet quality for female workers through market innovations: evidence from Assam's tea estates.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Archives of Iranian Medicine Journal (2010-2024).Archives of Iranian medicine · 2024Article
- Application of tele-neuropsychology and tele-mental health before and during COVID-19 era: a bibliometric analysis.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2024Review
- Noteworthy Developments in theKorean journal of radiology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCOVID-19 has affected research productivity across all areas of knowledge. Current evidence suggests that COVID-19 has had a blockbuster effect on journal impact factors (JIFs) and publication trends, while little is known on global health journals.
methodsTwenty global health journals were included to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on their JIFs and publication trends. Indicator data, including numbers of publications, citations, articles with different types, etc, were extracted from journal websites and Web of Science Core Collection database. The JIFs from 2019 to 2021 were simulated for longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses. Interrupted time-series analysis and non-parametric tests were applied to assess whether COVID-19 had decreased non-COVID-19 publications from January 2018 to June 2022.
resultsIn 2020, 615 out of 3223 publications were COVID-19 related, accounting for 19.08%. The simulated JIFs of 17 out of 20 journals in 2021 were higher than those in 2019 and 2020. Notably, 18 out of 20 journals had a decrease in their simulated JIFs after excluding COVID-19-related publications. Moreover, 10 out of 20 journals decreased their monthly numbers of non-COVID-19 publications after the COVID-19 outbreak. For all the 20 journals as a whole, after the COVID-19 outbreak in February 2020, the total number of non-COVID-19 publications significantly decreased by 14.2 compared with the previous month (p=0.013), and since then, on average, the publications had decreased by 0.6 per month until June 2022 (p<0.001).
conclusionsCOVID-19 has impacted the structure of COVID-19-related publications, the JIFs of global health journals and their numbers of non-COVID-19 publications. Although journals may benefit from increased JIFs, global health journals should avoid relying on a single metric. More follow-up studies including more years of data with a combination of metrics should be conducted to generate more robust evidence.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.