The profession of public health informatics: Still emerging? Export

@article{citeulike:4193967, abstract = {Although public health informatics (PHI) was defined in 1995, both then and still now it is an ” emerging” profession. An emergent profession lacks a base of ” technical specialized knowledge.” Therefore, we analyzed MEDLINE bibliographic citation records of the PHI literature to determine if a base of technical, specialized PHI literature exists, which could lead to the conclusion that PHI has emerged from its embryonic state. A MEDLINE search for PHI literature published from 1980–2006 returned 16,942 records. Record screening by two subject matter experts netted 2493 PHI records that were analyzed by the intervals of previous PHI CBMs 96-4 and 2001-2 for 1980–1995 (I 1980 ) and 1996–2000 (I 1996 ), respectively, and a new, third interval of 2001–2006 (I 2001 ). The distribution of records was 676 (I 1980 ), 839 (I 1996 ) and 978 (I 2001 ). Annual publication rates were 42 (I 1980 ), 168 (I 1996 ), and 163 (I 2001 ). Cumulative publications were accelerating. A subset of 19 (2.5\%) journals accounted for 730 (29.3\%) of the records. The journal subset average (±SD) annual publication rates of 0.7 ± 0.6 (I 1980 ), 2.9 ± 1.9 (I 1996 ), and 3.1 ± 2.7 (I 2001 ) were different, F (3, 64) = 7.12, p  < .05. Only I 1980 was different ( p  < .05) from I 1996 or I 2001 . Average (±SE) annual rate of increase for all journals (8.4 ± 0.8 publications per year) was different from the subset of 19 (2.7 ± 0.3), t (36) = 5.74, p  < .05. MeSH first time-to-indexing narrowed from 7.3 (±4.3) years to the year (0.5 ± 0.8) the term was introduced, t (30) = 7.03, p  < .05. A core set of journals, the proliferation of PHI articles in varied and numerous journals, and rapid uptake of MeSH suggest PHI is acquiring professional authority and now should not be tagged as an ” emerging” profession.}, author = {Araujo,, John and Pepper,, Catherine and Richards,, Janise and Choi,, Mona and Xing,, Jian and Li,, Wei}, citeulike-article-id = {4193967}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.02.001}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1386505609000185}, day = {17}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.02.001}, issn = {13865056}, journal = {International Journal of Medical Informatics}, keywords = {9, adults, informatics, paper, profession, public\_health}, month = {June}, number = {6}, pages = {375--385}, posted-at = {2009-10-30 14:14:50}, priority = {2}, title = {The profession of public health informatics: Still emerging?}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.02.001}, volume = {78}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4193967 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4193967 N2 - Although public health informatics (PHI) was defined in 1995, both then and still now it is an “emerging” profession. An emergent profession lacks a base of “technical specialized knowledge.” Therefore, we analyzed MEDLINE bibliographic citation records of the PHI literature to determine if a base of technical, specialized PHI literature exists, which could lead to the conclusion that PHI has emerged from its embryonic state. A MEDLINE search for PHI literature published from 1980–2006 returned 16,942 records. Record screening by two subject matter experts netted 2493 PHI records that were analyzed by the intervals of previous PHI CBMs 96-4 and 2001-2 for 1980–1995 (I 1980 ) and 1996–2000 (I 1996 ), respectively, and a new, third interval of 2001–2006 (I 2001 ). The distribution of records was 676 (I 1980 ), 839 (I 1996 ) and 978 (I 2001 ). Annual publication rates were 42 (I 1980 ), 168 (I 1996 ), and 163 (I 2001 ). Cumulative publications were accelerating. A subset of 19 (2.5%) journals accounted for 730 (29.3%) of the records. The journal subset average (±SD) annual publication rates of 0.7 ± 0.6 (I 1980 ), 2.9 ± 1.9 (I 1996 ), and 3.1 ± 2.7 (I 2001 ) were different, F (3, 64) = 7.12, p  < .05. Only I 1980 was different ( p  < .05) from I 1996 or I 2001 . Average (±SE) annual rate of increase for all journals (8.4 ± 0.8 publications per year) was different from the subset of 19 (2.7 ± 0.3), t (36) = 5.74, p  < .05. MeSH first time-to-indexing narrowed from 7.3 (±4.3) years to the year (0.5 ± 0.8) the term was introduced, t (30) = 7.03, p  < .05. A core set of journals, the proliferation of PHI articles in varied and numerous journals, and rapid uptake of MeSH suggest PHI is acquiring professional authority and now should not be tagged as an “emerging” profession. IS - 6 JF - International Journal of Medical Informatics SN - 13865056 EP - 385 TI - The profession of public health informatics: Still emerging? VL - 78 SP - 375 KW - 9 KW - adults KW - informatics KW - paper KW - profession KW - public_health AU - Araujo,, John AU - Pepper,, Catherine AU - Richards,, Janise AU - Choi,, Mona AU - Xing,, Jian AU - Li,, Wei PY - 2009/06/17/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.02.001 ER -