A bibliometric analysis in the fields of preventive medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, epidemiology, and public health

Table 1 Data regarding the worldwide research production in the "Preventive and Occupational/Environmental Medicine" subcategory.

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	Total number of articles for the whole period	Percentage of worldwide production (articles)	Mean impact factor of all articles	Total product for the whole period *	Total product/gross domestic product †	Total product/millions of population
USA	777	826	883	804	834	885	799	752	720	7,280	43.4	1.5	10,623	13.8	37.8
Canada	97	95	94	88	86	84	90	72	81	787	4.7	1.4	1,094	18.2	36.0
Western Europe	500	502	608	571	659	574	582	555	755	5,306	31.6	1.3	6,775	7.5	17.4
Japan	71	110	118	130	106	125	108	112	135	1,015	6.1	1.0	1,011	2.0	8.0
Oceania	15	18	23	23	37	38	53	41	39	287	1.7	1.2	331	7.1	11.0
Asia	91	103	121	92	141	133	161	165	259	1,266	7.6	1.0	1,265	3.9	0.4
Eastern Europe	20	26	39	54	38	46	51	77	110	461	2.8	1.1	525	5.3	1.2
Central and Latin America	20	17	30	20	14	39	30	34	48	252	1.5	1.4	345	2.1	0.7
Africa	11	9	13	15	11	12	16	23	18	128	0.8	1.1	137	2.8	0.2
TOTAL (or average)	1,602	1,706	1,929	1,797	1,926	1,936	1,890	1,831	2,165	16,782	-	-	-	(7.6)	-

* Defined as the product of articles multiplied by the corresponding impact factor of their journal
† Total product (defined by the number of articles multiplied by the impact factor of the journal) divided by gross domestic product in tens of trillions of 1995 US dollars

ISSN: 1471-2458