Change in Impact Factors of Public Health journals

While the most recent year's public health and epidemiology journal impact factor is informative, it is also very helpful to know to long term temporal trends in journals to assess a journal increase or decline.

Recently there was a study ("Time trends in the impact factor of Public Health journals" BMC Public Health. 2005; 5: 24) that examined the slope and an index of annual change of various public health and epidemiology journals' impact factors. Below is a tabulation (available open-access via PubMedCentral).

Journals ranked in descending order, by index of annual change (IAC).

Title	IAC	IF(2003)	mean	p-value
TOBACC. CONTROL	0.509	3.164	2.052	0.181
J. WOMEN. HEALTH. GEN. B	0.388	1.561	0.928	0.007
J. URBAN. HEALTH	0.316	1.286	0.723	0.002
INT. J. HYG. ENVIR. HEAL	0.302	1.085	0.822	0.142
EPIDEMIOLOGY	0.250	4.220	3.093	0.000
DRUG. SAFETY	0.238	2.971	2.059	0.000
AM. J. PREV. MED	0.232	3.256	1.440	0.000
ANNU. REV. PUBL. HEALTH	0.225	5.179	3.158	0.010
ENVIRON. HEALTH. PERSP	0.220	3.038	2.192	0.000
ANN. AGR. ENV. MED	0.216	0.827	0.590	0.065
CANCER. EPIDEMI. BIOMAR	0.214	4.720	3.475	0.001
SCAN. J. PUBLIC. HEALT	0.207	1.018	0.714	0.044
TROP. MED. INT. HEALTH	0.181	2.156	1.477	0.003
AIHAJ	0.180	0.601	0.449	0.166
SOZ. PREVENTIV. MED	0.170	0.750	0.525	0.013
ANN. EPIDEMIOL	0.141	2.345	1.995	0.001
PSYCHIATR. SERV	0.138	2.274	1.658	0.004
PAEDIATR. PERINAT. EP	0.132	1.673	1.176	0.005
INT. J. EPIDEMIOL	0.125	3.289	1.820	0.001
J. EXPO. ANAL. ENV. EPID	0.124	1.263	1.033	0.001
B. WORLD. HEALTH. ORGAN	0.115	2.442	1.838	0.001
TOXICOL. IND. HEALTH	0.106	0.508	1.051	0.206
MED. CARE	0.105	3.152	2.379	0.004
PATIENT. EDUC. COUNS	0.103	1.130	0.774	0.001
OCCUP. ENVIRON. MED	0.100	1.847	1.755	0.013
AM. J. EPIDEMIOL	0.099	4.486	3.788	0.000
NEUROEPIDEMIOLOGY	0.095	1.762	1.411	0.001
INT. J. ENVIRON. HEAL. R	0.094	0.588	0.419	0.088
CANCER. CAUSE. CONTROL	0.087	2.726	2.623	0.061
INDOOR. BUILT. ENVIRON	0.085	0.525	0.496	0.542
J. ADOLESCENT. HEALTH	0.082	1.674	1.361	0.000
INFECT. CONT. HOSP. EP	0.081	1.951	2.074	0.035
J. OCCUP. ENVIRON. MED	0.081	1.472	1.349	0.121
AM. J. PUBLIC. HEALTH	0.076	3.363	3.057	0.010
AVIAT. SPACE. ENVIR. MD	0.075	0.946	0.681	0.007
J. EPIDEMIOL. COMMUN. H	0.075	2.332	1.679	0.003
SCAN. J. WORK. ENV. HEA	0.075	1.816	1.433	0.001
ANN. OCCUP. HYG	0.070	1.357	1.041	0.002
COMUNITY. DENT. ORAL	0.069	1.100	0.976	0.002
J. CLIN. EPIDEMIOL	0.065	2.227	1.872	0.001
TR. ROY. SOC. TROP. MED. H	0.064	2.114	1.553	0.001
ENVIRON. RES	0.058	1.452	1.390	0.068
J. AEROSOL. MED	0.056	1.459	0.818	0.006
QUAL. HEALTH. CARE	0.056	1.466	1.232	0.221
ANN. TROP. MED. PARASIT	0.052	1.010	0.837	0.000
AM. J. IND. MED	0.049	1.542	1.256	0.001
OCCUP. MED. OXFORD	0.041	0.693	0.464	0.010
J. SCHOOL. HEALTH	0.039	0.868	0.688	0.185
FLUORIDE	0.034	0.907	0.560	0.018
J. PUBLIC. HEALTH. MED	0.032	0.973	0.805	0.014
STAT. MED	0.030	1.134	1.238	0.094
ENVIRON. GEOCHEM. HLTH	0.027	0.565	0.369	0.082
ANN. HUM. BIOL	0.026	0.885	0.787	0.001
INT. ARCH. OCC. ENV. HEA	0.026	1.388	1.086	0.072
PUBLIC. HEALTH	0.025	0.697	0.522	0.010
PUBLIC. HEALTH. REP	0.025	1.139	1.012	0.192
REV. EPIDEMIOL. SANTE	0.024	0.485	0.401	0.003
EPIDEMIOL. INFECT	0.023	1.509	1.594	0.199
EUR. J. EPIDEMIOL	0.022	0.972	0.676	0.080
TROP. DOCT	0.022	0.347	0.326	0.089
J. ENVIRON. HEALTH	0.021	0.341	0.228	0.007
AM. J. TROP. MED. HYG	0.019	2.105	1.950	0.058
GENET. EPIDEMIOL	0.018	2.265	1.681	0.544
IND. HEALTH	0.015	0.474	0.497	0.262
INT. J. TECHNOL. ASSESS	0.013	0.754	0.922	0.686
PREV. MED	0.013	1.889	1.540	0.568
HEALTH. PHYS	0.012	0.777	0.865	0.385
EUR. J. PUBLIC. HEALTH	0.002	1.281	1.044	0.983
J. PUBLIC. HEALTH. DENT	-0.010	1.000	0.787	0.568
WILD. ENVIRON. MED	-0.019	0.280	0.339	0.822
J. PUBLIC. HEALTH. POL	-0.023	0.314	0.615	0.675
J. MED. SCREEN	-0.033	1.867	1.815	0.696
J. ENVIRON. SCI. HEAL. B	-0.034	0.758	0.718	0.131
BIOMED. ENVIRON. SCI	-0.036	0.609	0.557	0.596
J. OCCUP. HEALTH	-0.040	1.047	1.049	0.445
ARCH. ENVIRON. HEALTH	-0.054	0.878	1.391	0.028
B. SOC. PATHOL. EXOT	-0.092	0.183	0.262	0.154
PALLIATIVE. MED	-0.103	1.185	1.627	0.060
QUAL. LIFE. RES	-0.171	2.000	2.089	0.149
EPIDEMIOL. REV	-0.175	3.306	3.203	0.076

METHODS:

Study selected 80 journals that: were included in the "Public, Environmental and Occupational Health" category of the hard copy version of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from 1992 through 2003; were listed for a minimum period of 3 consecutive years; and had IFs in the JCR for 2003. Study consulted the 2003 JCR-IFs via the ISI Web of Knowledge. The impact factor is one of the quantitative tools provided by JCR for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing journals. The annual impact factor of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years. Impact factor time trends were assessed using a linear regression model, in which the dependent variable was IF and the independent variable, the year. The slope of the model (index of annual change-IAC) and its statistical significance were taken as the indicator of year-to-year variation.