International Journal Of Epidemiology Reported To Have Highest
Impact Factor
Jumps By
30% From 2012 To 2013
The latest 2014
report from Journal Citation Reports provides its ranking of
journals by its “impact factor” metric and it ranks the
International Journal of Epidemiology as having the highest impact
factor in this category of 160 journals (see table below). The
impact factor reflects the number of citations which an “average
article” in the journal receives as a measure of the influence of
the journal content.
Whatever readers
think about the merits or demerits of journal impact factors, most
of the leading epidemiology journals promote or provide their impact
factors on the home pages of their websites.
Use Of Impact
Factors
The only exception
we could find among the leading journals is Epidemiology where
several critiques of the impact factor have been published in the
past.
The International
Journal of Epidemiology (IJE) touts the latest result on its home
page and the indicator was mentioned proudly in different settings
at the recent triennial meeting of the sponsoring International
Epidemiological Association (IEA) in Anchorage.
Criticisms
Critics we spoke to
said the impact factor is a poor marker of quality, one reason being
that journals can publish editorials with self-citations which tends
to increase the impact factor, and another being that high quality
papers may appeal to only a small readership and therefore influence
negatively the impact factor metric.
IEA Statement
According to a statement on the IEA news page, “The
2013 impact factor ratings place the IJE first out of a field of 160
journals. Since taking up the editorship of the IJE at the turn of
the millennium, George Davey Smith and Shah Ebrahim
have slowly but surely driven the journal up the impact factor
rankings. However, this year it made a major leap to outstrip its
main American rivals: Environmental Health Perspectives and
Epidemiologic Reviews (both frequently ranked first), Epidemiology,
and the American Journal of Epidemiology. Paul Kidd of Oxford
University Press, which publishes the IJE, commented: ‘An increase
of this magnitude in one year is very rare and a great result for
the IJE. This is a triumph for the hard work and dedication of the
Editors and Editorial Board.’”
We welcome reader
comments on the current crop of impact factors for 2013. Below is a
table providing the impact factors for the top 25 public health
journals. The table is adapted from the Lamar Soutter library at the
University of Massachusetts which provides this listing free of
charge on its website.
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Adapted from the Lamar Soutter Library at the University
of Massachusetts |
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