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Infectious Diseases of Poverty, the First Five Years Wang et al. Infectious Diseases of Poverty (2017) 6:96 DOI 10.1186/s40249-017-0310-6 EDITORIAL Open Access Infectious Diseases of Poverty, the first five years Wei Wang1,2,3,4, Jin Chen5,6,7, Hui-Feng Sheng5,6,7, Na-Na Wang8, Pin Yang5,6,7*, Xiao-Nong Zhou5,6,7 and Robert Bergquist9 Abstract Although the focus in the area of health research may be shifting from infectious to non-communicable diseases, the infectious diseases of poverty remain a major burden of disease of global health concern. A global platform to communicate and share the research on these diseases is needed to facilitate the translation of knowledge into effective approaches and tools for their elimination. Based on the “One health, One world” mission, a new, open- access journal, Infectious Diseases of Poverty (IDP), was launched by BioMed Central in partnership with the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases (NIPD), Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) on October 25, 2012. Its aim is to identify and assess research and information gaps that hinder progress towards new interventions for a particular public health problem in the developing world. From the inaugural IDP issue of October 25, 2012, a total of 256 manuscripts have been published over the following five years. Apart from a small number of editorials, opinions, commentaries and letters to the editor, the predominant types of publications are research articles (69.5%) and scoping reviews (21.5%). A total of 1 081 contributing authors divided between 323 affiliations across 68 countries, territories and regions produced these 256 publications. The journal is indexed in major international biomedical databases, including Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and Embase. In 2015, it was assigned its first impact factor (4.11), which is now 2.13. Duringthepastfiveyears,IDP has received manuscripts from 90 countries, territories and regions across six continents with an annual acceptance rate of all contributions maintained at less than 40%. Content analysis shows that neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), followed by the “Big Three” (HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis) and infectious diseases in general comprise 88% of all publications. In addition, a series of 10 thematic issues, covering 118 publications in all, was published as separate parts of the first five volumes. These publications were cited 975 times, which equals an average of 8.3 times per publication. The current challenge is to identify cutting-edge research topics and attract and to publish first-rate publications leading to increasing importance and impact of the journal in its field. Keywords: Infectious diseases of poverty, Impact, Impact factor, Bibliometric analysis, Content analysis Multilingual abstracts cancer currently being the leading causes of morbidity Please see Additional file 1 for translations of the and mortality worldwide [1]. However, infections remain abstract into the six official languages of the United a major global health concern, particularly in the devel- Nations. oping world [2], where the human immunodeficiency virus and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome Background (HIV/AIDS), viral hepatitis, tuberculosis and malaria, The global burden of disease today is less due to infec- still kill millions of people around the globe every year tious diseases than non-communicable diseases, with [3, 4]. Parasitic diseases, e.g., malaria and schistosomia- chronic disorders such as heart disease, stroke and sis, do not always remain limited to their age-old geo- graphic distributions complicating control efforts and * Correspondence: [email protected] challenging the progress towards their elimination [5–8]. 5National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, No. 207 Rui Jin Er Road, Shanghai, 200025, China Additionally, emerging and re-emerging infectious dis- 6WHO Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases, No. 207 Rui Jin Er Road, eases like the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Shanghai, 200025, China influenza, Ebola virus disease (EVD), dengue, Middle Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Wang et al. Infectious Diseases of Poverty (2017) 6:96 Page 2 of 11 East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Zika virus dis- submission systems and the WOS Citation Database as ease threaten human health and global security [9–18]. of 20th February, 2017. We used ordinary descriptive Infectious diseases are inextricably linked to poverty in statistics to analyse the performance of IDP during its a vicious cycle [19]. These diseases, characterized by first five years supported by BioMed Central’s databases high morbidity and mortality that mainly occur in [23]. resource-limited areas, belong by definition to the group of diseases that are more prevalent among poor and vul- Results nerable populations [20]. They rank within the top ten Editorial board ailments with respect to years lost due to ill-health, dis- IDP is currently managed by an Editor-in-Chief and two ability or early death, expressed as disability-adjusted life managing editors, one based in China and the other in years (DALYs) [3]. In a global perspective, this leads to France. They perform the bulk of the day-to-day activ- huge economic losses, both for the individual and soci- ities, including communication with authors, choosing ety, and a global platform to communicate and share the and contacting referees for peer review, and making the research on the infectious diseases of poverty was felt to final decisions with regard to publication or rejection of be needed to facilitate the translation of knowledge into manuscripts. This core team is supported by five Deputy effective approaches and tools for the elimination of Editors and 13 Associate Editors from Asia, Africa, these diseases. Europe, North America, South America and Oceania. On October 25, 2012, Infectious Diseases of Poverty To assure quality and impact from the start, IDP (IDP) was launched as a new, open-access (OA) journal appointed an international editorial board of well-known on infectious diseases by BioMed Central, in partnership scientists with expertise within the fields of infectious with the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases (NIPD), diseases, parasitic diseases, social sciences and economy. Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention The current editorial board consists of 31 members, (CDC). Its preferential aims are to identify and assess based in UK (n =4), USA (n =3), China (n =3), research and information gaps that hinder progress Australia (n =3), Switzerland (n =3), Brazil (n =2), towards new interventions for public health problems, in Cameroon (n =2), India (n =2), Nigeria (n = 1), Japan particular those connected with poverty in the develop- (n =1),Ghana(n =1),Belgium(n = 1), Thailand (n =1), ing world. Based on the “One health, One world” mis- Greece (n = 1), Democratic Republic of Congo (n =1), sion mentioned in the Global Report on Research for the South Africa (n =1),Kenya(n =1)andSenegal(n =1). Infectious Diseases of Poverty [21], the journal publishes work on topics and approaches that address essential Bibliometric analysis public health questions related to this issue. Along with From the inaugural issue of October, 2012 up to and in- the actions proposed by this report, IDP, aims to achieve cluding October, 2016, a total of 256 manuscripts were the goal of improving research capacity and create a bet- published in IDP. The annual publication record is pre- ter environment for the research on the infectious dis- sented in Fig. 1. Out of all publications, research articles eases of poverty [19, 22]. (69.5%) and scoping reviews (21.5%) dominated with the The purpose of this article is to review the publication remaining 7 publication being editorials, opinion articles activities of IDP in its first five years by comparing the and letters to the editor (Fig. 2). A total of 1 081 contrib- record with other journals with a similar focus in order uting authors, divided between 323 affiliations across 68 to understand the current trends of research in publica- countries, territories and, regions produced these 256 pub- tions on infectious diseases. lications during the five-year period (Tables 1, 2 and 3). The publications included 53 countries, territories and re- Methods gions from the developing world (78%) [24]. We performed an in-depth bibliometric analysis of all publications during the first five volumes covering the Impact period from October 25, 2012 to October 25, 2016 The journal is indexed in major international biomedical through a joint search using the publication name databases, including WOS, Science Citation Index Ex- “Infectious Diseases of Poverty” in PubMed, Web of Sci- panded, MEDLINE, DOAJ, PubMed, Scopus and ence (WOS) (formerly ISI Web of Knowledge) and the Embase. In 2015, it was assigned the first impact factor journal’s website. We also compared with two other (4.11), which is now 2.13 (Fig. 3). journals in this area, International Journal of Infectious Diseases and BMC Infectious Diseases. The citation record The publication data and metrics of IDP, International Up to 20th February 2017, the 256 publications in the Journal of Infectious Diseases and BMC Infectious first five IDP volumes were cited 1 187 times in total, i.e. Diseases were collected using these journals’ homepages, a mean citation of 4.64 times per paper. Table 4 presents Wang et al.
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