Use of bibliometric techniques in environmental health research in Latin America 2000-2009

Abstract

The environmental health subject has a significant growth in the international scientific production. The aim of this study was to characterize the generation of scientific papers in the field of environmental health for Latin America, over a period of 10 years. The methodology involved the use of bibliometric techniques. The results show that there are 1219 documents on the topic. Of these, 83.23% were produced by Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia. The preferred language of publication is English, with 81.30% of the items, Spanish and Portuguese share equal figures, with a presence of 9,11%. The typology found indicates that 72.11% of the items were journal articles, 14.27% conference proceedings and 10.05% review articles. It is emphasized that all countries produce more than 60%. Other indicators show that Chile has the best average in citations per document, 8.02%.