Growth and trends in scientific production in epidemiology in Brazil

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the growth of epidemiological research in Brazil in comparison to the total number of indexed publications worldwide and from several Latin American and Caribbean countries. METHODS: A Boolean combination of epidemiological key words was used to search the MEDLINE/PubMed database for articles published between 1985 and 2004. These articles were divided into 4 time periods: 1985-9, 1990-4, 1995-9, and 2000-4. RESULTS: Of the total 211,727 articles identified in the MEDLINE/PubMed database, 1,952 (0.9%) were related to Brazil. The number of articles increased 12-fold throughout the period (from 91 to 1,096), and more than doubled (0.54% to 1.1%) if considered in relation to the total number of indexed articles. This growth was accompanied by diversification of the subjects addressed. The fields of infectious diseases and mother-child health, which predominated during the first period (74%), represented only a minority of articles in the last period. There was a noteworthy increase in the Brazilian output when compared to that of other Latin American and Caribbean countries. CONCLUSIONS: Our results corroborate previous evidence of the intense growth of epidemiological research in Brazil in the last two decades. This growth was more intense than mean growth worldwide, and much greater than that found in other Latin American countries. Therefore, Brazilian scientific output in the epidemiology field is showing a growth pattern similar to that of other scientific areas in the country.