A twenty year bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Chiropractic Education and its relation to public health

Objective: To study the quality and quantity of papers published in the first 20 years of publication of the Journal of Chiropractic Education and to document studies about the teaching of public health.

Methods: All volumes for the journal were retrieved (1987-2006). Each article was reviewed for content, type of research design, region/college of origin, and the presence of a structured or unstructured abstract. Only full articles were included in this study. Abstracts from proceedings and ephemera were excluded from this analysis. Articles that presented no data (eg, description of a teaching process, narrative reviews, etc) were classified as descriptive in nature. Articles that reported data were classified as articles with data. The number of full papers reporting any aspect of public health education was counted.

Results: After applying the in/exclusion criteria, 153 papers were assessed. Published articles came from 5 countries and 23 chiropractic colleges. Of these articles, 101 articles (66%) were descriptive in nature. Four papers (2.6%) related to public health education. A trend was noticed for papers to be more quantitative in the second decade of the journal, in addition to consistent use of a single reference format and the development of structured abstracts.

Conclusion: As the primary periodical that publishes educational research in chiropractic, greater regional diversity is needed for the journal to better represent the world wide distribution of the profession. A greater number of data studies is needed, including more papers investigating the implementation and evaluation of educational programs pertaining to public health.