Scientometrics
Volume/Issue:
Volume 89: Issue 1
A surname-based bibliometric indicator: publications in biomedical journal
Author:
Igor Kissin Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Anesthesia, Boston, MA 02115, USA

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Pages:
273–280
Online Publication Date:
25 Jun 2011
Publication Date:
01 Oct 2011
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0437-3
Keywords:
Bibliometrics; Biomedical journals; Impact factor; Nobel prize; Publication productivity; Surnames
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Abstract

Surnames have been used as a proxy in studies on health care for various ethnic groups and also applied to ascribe ethnicity in studies on the genetic structure of a population. The aim of this study was to use a surname-based bibliometric indicator to assess the representation of Jewish authors in US biomedical journals. The other aim was to test the hypothesis that the representation of Jewish authors in US biomedical journals corresponds to their representation among US Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, 1960–2009. From among articles published 1960–2009 in all journals covered by Medline (>5,000), and in the top 10 US biomedical journals we counted articles by authors from the following three groups: Kohenic–Levitic surnames, other common Jewish surnames, and the most frequent non-Jewish surnames in the USA. The frequency of a surname in the US population (1990 US Census) was used to calculate the expected number of scientific publications: the total number of published articles multiplied by a surname's frequency. The actual number of articles with that surname was also determined. The ratio of actual to expected number of articles was used as a measure of representation proportionality. It was found that the ratio of actual to expected number of articles in both Jewish groups is close to 10 among all (>5,000) journals, and close to 20 in the top 10 journals. The ratio of actual to expected numbers of Jewish Nobel Laureates in the USA is also close to 20. In conclusion, the representation of Jewish authors in top 10 US biomedical journals corresponds to the representation of Jewish Nobel Laureates among US laureates. We hypothesize that disproportional representation of Jewish scientists as authors in top biomedical journals and among Nobel Prize laureates in Medicine is mostly due to their overrepresentation as research participants, not because of the increased chances for reward for a Jewish researcher per se.

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Cover Scientometrics
Scientometrics
Print ISSN:
0138-9130
Online ISSN:
1588-2861

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Scientometrics
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1978
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 12
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0138-9130 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2861 (Online)

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