Baier, LA; Wilczynski, NL; Haynes, RB. 2010. Tackling the growth of the obesity literature: obesity evidence spreads across many journals. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBESITY 34 (10): 1526-1530

[Eugene Garfield]

Baier, LA; Wilczynski, NL; Haynes, RB. 2010. Tackling the growth of the obesity 
literature: obesity evidence spreads across many journals. INTERNATIONAL 
JOURNAL OF OBESITY 34 (10): 1526-1530..

Author Full Name(s): Baier, L. A.; Wilczynski, N. L.; Haynes, R. B.
Language: English
Document Type: Article

Author Keywords: health informatics; clinical trials
KeyWords Plus: OPTIMAL SEARCH STRATEGIES; MEDICINE; MEDLINE

Abstract: Objective: This study identified the journals with the highest yield of 
clinical obesity research articles and surveyed the scatter of such studies 
across journals. The study exemplifies an approach to establish a journal 
collection that is likely to contain most new knowledge about a field.
Design and methods: All original studies that were cited in 40 systematic 
reviews about obesity topics ('included studies') were compiled and journal 
titles in which they were published were extracted. The journals were ranked 
by the number of included studies. The highest-yielding journals for clinical 
obesity and the scatter across journal titles were determined. A subset of 
these journals was created in MEDLINE (PubMed) to test search recall and 
precision for high-quality studies of obesity treatment (that is, articles that 
pass predetermined methodology criteria, including random allocation of 
participants to comparison groups, assessment of clinical outcomes, and at 
least 80% follow-up).
Results: Articles in 252 journals were cited in the systematic reviews. The 
three highest-yielding journals specialized in obesity, but they published only 
19.2% of the research, leaving 80.8% scattered across 249 non-obesity 
journals. The MEDLINE journal subset comprised 241 journals (11 journals were 
not indexed in MEDLINE) and included 82% of the clinical obesity research 
articles retrieved by a search for high-quality treatment studies ('recall' of 
82%). Of the articles retrieved, 11% were about clinical obesity care 
('precision' of 11%), compared with precision of 6% for obesity treatment 
studies in the full MEDLINE database.
Conclusion: Obesity journals captured only a small proportion of the literature 
on clinical obesity care. Those wishing to keep up in this field will need to 
develop more inclusive strategies than reading these specialty journals. A 
journal subset based on these findings may be useful when searching large 
electronic databases to increase search precision. International Journal of 
Obesity (2010) 34, 1526-1530; doi:10.1038/ijo.2009.268; published online 22 
December 2009

Addresses: [Baier, L. A.; Wilczynski, N. L.; Haynes, R. B.] McMaster Univ, Dept 
Clin Epidemiol & Biostat, Hlth Informat Res Unit, Hamilton, ON, Canada

Reprint Address: Haynes, RB, McMaster Univ, Med Ctr, Fac Hlth Sci, Hlth 
Informat Res Unit,Dept Clin Epidemiol & Bios, Room 3V43C,1200 Main St, W 
Hamilton, ON L8N 3C9, Canada.

E-mail Address: bhaynes at mcmaster.ca
ISSN: 0307-0565
DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2009.268
fulltext: http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v34/n10/abs/ijo2009268a.html