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Scientific authorships and collaboration network analysis on Chagas disease: papers indexed in PubMed (1940-2009)

Authors :
Gregorio González-Alcaide
Jinseo Park
Charles Huamaní
Joaquín Gascón
José Manuel Ramos
Source :
Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, Vol 54, Iss 4, Pp 219-228 (2012)
Publication Year :
2012
Publisher :
Universidade de São Paulo (USP), 2012.

Abstract

Chagas disease is a chronic, tropical, parasitic disease, endemic throughout Latin America. The large-scale migration of populations has increased the geographic distribution of the disease and cases have been observed in many other countries around the world. To strengthen the critical mass of knowledge generated in different countries, it is essential to promote cooperative and translational research initiatives. We analyzed authorship of scientific documents on Chagas disease indexed in the Medline database from 1940 to 2009. Bibliometrics was used to analyze the evolution of collaboration patterns. A Social Network Analysis was carried out to identify the main research groups in the area by applying clustering methods. We then analyzed 13,989 papers produced by 21,350 authors. Collaboration among authors dramatically increased over the study period, reaching an average of 6.2 authors per paper in the last five-year period. Applying a threshold of collaboration of five or more papers signed in co-authorship, we identified 148 consolidated research groups made up of 1,750 authors. The Chagas disease network identified constitutes a "small world," characterized by a high degree of clustering and a notably high number of Brazilian researchers.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
16789946 and 00364665
Volume :
54
Issue :
4
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.8216e00806414bdc8f6320ec38cb4c29
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0036-46652012000400007