Health Policy and Planning’s Top 10 Articles Contributing to the 2019 Impact Factor

By Natasha Salaria (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)

The 2019 impact factors are now out as of July 2020, and what a year 2020 has been so far. With things being relatively unpredictable in the global sphere, our impact factor has remained well, fairly steady and similar to last year at 2.704 with our 5-year impact factor coming in at 3.154. This keeps us in Quartile 1 of the Health Policy and Services category (18^th out of 87 journals).

As we know, the usage of impact factors is widely contested as a means of assessing journal impact, however it does still remain recognised as an indicator of citation rates to journal articles.

After delving into some of the citation data, we would like to share out top 10 most highly cited articles that contributed to the 2019 impact factor in Health Policy and Planning:

1. Original article: Disrespectful and abusive treatment during facility delivery in Tanzania: a facility and community survey
2. Original article: Strengthening mental health system governance in six low-and middle-income countries in Africa and south Asia: challenges, needs and potential strategies
3. Methodological Musing: Understanding and Improving the One and Three Times GDP per Capita Cost-Effectiveness Thresholds
4. Review: Support and performance improvement for primary health care workers in low and middle-income countries: a comparative review of intervention design and methods
5. Original article: Where Women Go to Deliver: Understanding the Changing Landscape of Childbirth in Africa and Asia
6. Original article: Indonesia’s road to universal health coverage: a political journey
7. Review: Interventions and Approaches to Integrating HIV and Mental Health Services: A Systematic Review
8. Original article: Quality of integrated chronic disease care in rural South Africa: user and provider perspectives
9. Original article: From bouncing back, to nurturing emergence: Reframing the concept of resilience in health systems strengthening
10. Review: Frameworks to assess health systems governance: A systematic review

*These data summarize the characteristics of the journal’s published content for the most recent three years, that is, 2019 and the two prior years, combined. This information is based on all listed authors and addresses. It is meant to be descriptive rather than comparative.

Our top 10 contributions by organizations include high performing higher education institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard University, University of Cape Town and the World Health Organization.

The journal has wide reach and publishes papers from authors in over 60 countries, many from low- and middle-income countries who are able to utilise our reduced rate or free access countries list.

In 2019, our blog audience included readers from Kenya, India, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Ghana.

Altmetric

Altmetric is an alternative metric to the impact factor, used to demonstrate engagement with journals on an individual article level. Altmetric collects data on universal popularity and uptake, including within policy documents to show how research has influenced health policy as well as media outlets and social media platform discussions.

We have had several articles published in policy documents from the World Health Organization in the past year including this Health Financing Guidance, World Report on Vision (in Spanish) and State of the World’s Nursing 2020 (in French).

Here are the Top 10 articles from 2019 with the highest Altmetric score published in Health Policy and Planning:

1. Editor’s choice: Cuban infant mortality and longevity: health care or repression?
2. Original article: Counting indirect crisis-related deaths in the context of a low-resilience health system: the case of maternal and neonatal health during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone
3. 10 best resources: 10 best resources on power in health policy and systems in low- and middle-income countries
4. Review: The impact of cash transfers on social determinants of health and health inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review
5. Original article: Allocation of development assistance for health: is the predominance of national income justified?
6. Original article: Minding the gaps: health financing, universal health coverage and gender
7. Original article: Priority setting for health in the context of devolution in Kenya: implications for health equity and community-based primary care
8. 10 Best Resources: 10 Best resources for community engagement in implementation research
9. Original article: Reimagining infertility: a critical examination of fertility norms, geopolitics and survey bias
10. Original article: Psychosocial support for adolescent girls in post-conflict settings: beyond a health systems approach

Don’t forget to check out our latest outputs including:

• [RESEARCH COLLECTION] Evidence to inform the COVID-19 Response
• [PODCAST] Evaluating a school-based intimate partner violence prevention intervention
• [SUPPLEMENTS] Watch this space for 2020 supplements publishing in November!
• [EDITOR’S CHOICE ARTICLES]
• [INFOGRAPHIC] HPP at a glance