Scientific productivity of OECD countries in dermatology journals within the last 10-year period

Abstract

Background Scientific productivity is closely related to gross income, population, and cultures of the countries. Every country, more or less, has a responsibility of contributing to science. Materials and methods The publications, citations received, and the h-index under the category of "dermatology" in 43 journals between the years of 1999-2003 and 2004-2008 according to the ISI JCR data of 2008 were examined individually for each OECD country. Results In the journals under the category of "dermatology" between the years of 1999 and 2008, there were 89,319 publications, 76,899 of which were published by OECD countries. USA ranks first with 27,109 publications and 196,002 citations; Germany, Japan, England, and France are the other countries among the top five, respectively. Regarding the number of publications, Turkey and Korea are among the top 10 by surpassing many Northern European countries. With regard to h-index and citations, Northern European countries and Canada rank among the top 10, while Japan, Spain, Turkey, and Korea rank behind. The number of publications showed a significant correlation with the number of citations, population, gross domestic product, and h-index. Conclusions Nearly half of all publications were performed by the European origin OECD countries, and one-third of all publications were performed by USA. Journals from Germany and France, which are published in their own language, receive fewer citations, but they contribute a lot to these countries with respect to the number of publications. © 2012 The International Society of Dermatology.