Development Characteristics Of Academic Periodicals On Preventive Medicine In China

Public health and preventive medicine is an important part of medical subject. The academic periodicals play key role to communicate and spread the updated information and/or scientific research results. It is necessary to understand the developmental characteristics of these periodicals to improve the quality and serve the the public better.ObjectiveTo understand the developmental characteristics of academic periodicals on preventive medicine in China, to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of periodical through bibliometric indicators, to analyse factors that affect the quality of the medical periodicals.MethodA total of 73 academic periodicals in the area of preventive medical and public health were selected from National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Wanfang Data as research objects. Bibliometric method was used to examine their characteristics, citation index and source index development characteristics. Furthermore, the changing characteristics of medical periodicals in the area of environmental and occupational health were explored. The major sources of data cames from the periodicals, CNKI, China Academic Periodicals Web, China Citation Database, China Academic Periodicals Analysis Platform,2008 Chinese Scientific and Technical Citation Reporst (Core Version) (Beijing:Science and Technology Document Press) and Chinese Academic Journals Comprehensive Citation Report 2008 (Beijing: Science Publisher). Results1. The Basic Characteristics of Academic Periodicals on Preventive Medicine in ChinaChinese Journal of Antituberculosis (1950) is the earliest periodical.1980s is the period that underwent the fastest growth in the number of periodicals, with growth rate over 200%. The editoral offices are mainly located in the north China (43.8%), while 27.4% in Beijing. The frequency of publication is mostly bimonthly (49.3%) and 4 periodicals are published semimonthly (5.47%).23% periodicals are sponsored by the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association (CPMA). The quality of paper and colour is fairly good. The cover page is normally nice-looking. There is low level of internet usage. Only 24.3% has its own website.30.1% uses public websites.38.4% does not use internet at all. The popularity of the websites is far below than that of internationally famous publications in this field (average level of 104.8 and 357223 respectively). The delay in publication is on average 178 daysand not satisfies with the requirement for national scientific periodicals. Electronic service is common and effective.69% periodicals respond to readers'queries within 24 hours.2. Bibliometric Research on Development Characteristics of PeriodicalsThe median of the number of citation of the 73 preventive medicine periodicals is 6239, the average citation per article is 1.56 with h index of 22.5. The median of source index is 4061, downloading amount is 68763; citation per article is 1.07. The median of various index in 2007 are as follows:total citation:742, impact factor: 0.392, total publication number:259, download amount:14, ratio of funding per publication:0.13. The indices of the core periodicals are higher than the average, with total citation of 690, impact factor of 0.436. The impact factor varies greatly among the 34 core periodicals, with maximum of 1.436 and minimum of 0.080. From 2001 to 2009, the indices show an upward trend. Analysis shows that the age of the periodicals is directly proportional to the volume of publication, downloading and citation and h index. Analysis also shows that the indices are inter-related. For example, citation frequency and impact factor, impact of the subject and spread index. Linear regression analysis shows that h index is affected by 5-year impact factor, half-life of citation, frequency of citation and downloading rate, but not the impact factor. Logistics regression analysis shows that quality of periodicals is only affected by years of publication and existence of English abstract, if only basic characteristics not Bibliometric Indicators, of periodical are considered.3. The Development Characteristics of Core Journals on Environmental and Occupational MedicineAccording to the data provided by Source Journals for Chinese Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations, there are only 7 journals in the catalogue of Chinese environmental and occupational medicine,namely, China Occupational Medicine, Chinese Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Diseases, Chinese Journal of Industrial Medicine, Industrial Health and Occupational Diseases, Journal of Environment and Health, Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Occupation and Health.. All these journals were firstly published before 1990's, in which 3 are bimonthly journal,3 are monthly journal and 1 is semimonthly journal. All journals has progressed in both content and cover design, the bibliometric index are within medium level among preventive medicine journals. From 1986 to 2006, all the factors have gained continuous improvement, but in terms of network information, only 2 journals have online manuscripts submission, the others can only accept hard-copy submission. Some of the journals even haven't established a website or the website is faulty. Sometimes also the website is not updated.ConclusionSince 50's of the twentieth century, Chinese preventive medicine periodicals have gained in quantity; the editorial, printing and service quality has been improved; the average level of bibliometric index (citation factor and source factor) is close to that of the overall Chinese academic periodicals. In the last decade, the average level of all the indices has been improved steadily; however, the development of different journals in this catalogue is not even, the differences of the indices among journals are obvious. Compared with the overall quality of Chinese scientific periodicals, the level of network information and open database of preventive medicine periodicals are relatively fall behind and need to be improved.