142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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304384
Analysis of Government Publication and Gray Literature Citations in an Occupational and Environmental Health Journal

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Nancy Schaefer, MLIS, AHIP , Health Science Center Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Background and Objectives: Analysis of 1,046 citations in four occupational health journals from 2008-2010 characterized 13.2% as either government documents or gray literature. The current study analyses the formats and authorship of such citations in one of those journals from 2008 to 2013 to increase researcher awareness of potentially useful if non-traditional sources.

Methods: The citations in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine that had been categorized as government documents or “miscellaneous” in the 2008-2010 corpus were further categorized as to type of authorship/sponsorship and format. Citations in the same journal from 2011-2013 were analyzed in the same manner and the results combined.

Results: National and state level government sources were cited more frequently than those at the international, regional and local levels. Government agencies and nonprofit organizations were the authors/sponsors most often cited. Narrative reports and webpages were more frequently cited than other formats. Although US and European nations dominated, other nations were represented.

Conclusions: Occupational and environmental health researchers draw largely from national and state narrative and statistical reports. Researchers should investigate such agencies when seeking information but remember that these are rarely peer-reviewed in the traditional academic sense. In the six years of this study, this journal’s articles tended to cite European and American sources but increasing emphasis on the global nature of health may increase citations from other geographic areas in the future.

Learning Areas:

Occupational health and safety
Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
List the most frequently-cited sources and formats of gray literature cited in occupational and environmental health journals at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

Keyword(s): Occupational Health and Safety, Public Health Research

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have researched citation patterns in occupational health for 3 years, read extensively in the literature on the topic and presented at a regional and two national professional conferences. I have served a liaison librarian to the public health program at my institution since it began 14 years ago.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4394.0: 100 years of OHS history, plus topics involving workers in Louisiana