Trends in biomedical informatics: most cited topics from recent years

Abstract

Biomedical informatics is a young, highly interdisciplinary field that is evolving quickly. It is important to know which published topics in generalist biomedical informatics journals elicit the most interest from the scientific community, and whether this interest changes over time, so that journals can better serve their readers. It is also important to understand whether free access to biomedical informatics articles impacts their citation rates in a significant way, so authors can make informed decisions about unlock fees, and journal owners and publishers understand the implications of open access. The topics and JAMIA articles from years 2009 and 2010 that have been most cited according to the Web of Science are described. To better understand the effects of free access in article dissemination, the number of citations per month after publication for articles published in 2009 versus 2010 was compared, since there was a significant change in free access to JAMIA articles between those years. Results suggest that there is a positive association between free access and citation rate for JAMIA articles.

Figure 1

Frequently published topics and adjusted citations for JAMIA articles in 2009 and 2010. (A) The number of articles included in the most frequently cited topics did not significantly change from 2009 to 2010, except for the topic User-Computer Interface. (B) The median number of citations-per-month (CPM) was significantly lower in 2010 than in 2009 (p=0.001). In the simulated scenario in which articles were available for six fewer months (2010sim), reflecting the increased embargo period for the journal, the median CPM was not significantly different for 2009 (p=0.409). (C) The CPM dropped for all topics from 2009 to 2010, except for the topic Natural Language Processing and Methods.

Figure 2

Citation rates for 2009 and 2010 articles indexed by descending order of citations-per-month (CPM). (A) CPM for articles published in 2009. (B) CPM for articles published in 2010. (C) CPM for a simulated scenario in which we assumed that 2010 articles were available six fewer months, representing the increase in the embargo period until free access was granted. (D) Decay plot of CPM for 2009, 2010, and simulated 2010 scenario, fitted by a bi-exponential method.