Thirty years of research in tropical medicine: historical trends for the world and for the Revista de Biología Tropical (1990-2020)

Abstract

Introduction: The importance of tropical medicine cannot be overstated, since by the end of the 2030s, most humans will live in the tropics and will need protection from tropical diseases. Nevertheless, until now, there are no bibliometric studies about tropical medicine as a whole; all previous studies are limited to diseases, countries or particular journals, and are often limited to brief periods of time. Here we present an analysis of historical trends for the world and for the Revista de Biología Tropical in celebration of the journal’s 70th anniversary.  Objective: To assess geographic and historical trends in the study of tropical medicine included in a general database, the Web of Science and from a detailed analysis of one journal of particular importance for the field in the neotropical region.  Methods: We limited our data to journals covered by the Web of Science category “tropical medicine” in the Science Citation Index Expanded (data updated 19 January 2022) and the Journal Citation Report on 30 June 2021.  Results: We retrieved 69 480 articles, of which 44 % resulted from international collaboration with 194 participating countries; articles may reach 17–21 citations each, and the countries with outstanding results in the database include USA, Brazil, UK, Kenya and Switzerland. Research focus changes as diseases such as HIV, Dengue and tuberculosis become more or less important over time, but overall there was much research on Plasmodium, leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis. The journal Revista de Biología Tropical has significantly increased the number of topics covered, but still publishes studies about tropical biomedical subjects. Conclusions: While countries with large research budgets have a large presence in this database, lower income tropical countries like Brazil and Kenya have done a remarkable contribution in the field of tropical medicine. The Revista de Biología Tropical has been publishing quality research about tropical medicine for the last seven decades.