Scientific authorships and collaboration network analysis on Chagas disease: papers indexed in PubMed (1940-2009)

Abstract

Chagasdiseaseisachronic,tropical,parasiticdisease,endemicthroughoutLatinAmerica.Thelarge-scalemigrationofpopulationshasincreasedthegeographicdistributionofthediseaseandcaseshavebeenobservedinmanyothercountriesaroundtheworld.Tostrengthenthecriticalmassofknowledgegeneratedindifferentcountries,itisessentialtopromotecooperativeandtranslationalresearchinitiatives.WeanalyzedauthorshipofscientificdocumentsonChagasdiseaseindexedintheMedlinedatabasefrom1940to2009.Bibliometricswasusedtoanalyzetheevolutionofcollaborationpatterns.ASocialNetworkAnalysiswascarriedouttoidentifythemainresearchgroupsintheareabyapplyingclusteringmethods.Wethenanalyzed13,989papersproducedby21,350authors.Collaborationamongauthorsdramaticallyincreasedoverthestudyperiod,reachinganaverageof6.2authorsperpaperinthelastfive-yearperiod.Applyingathresholdofcollaborationoffiveormorepaperssignedinco-authorship,weidentified148consolidatedresearchgroupsmadeupof1,750authors.TheChagasdiseasenetworkidentifiedconstitutesasmallworld,characterizedbyahighdegreeofclusteringandanotablyhighnumberofBrazilianresearchers.