Looking at WORK journal: Findings from a bibliometric analysis and visualization from 1990 to 2022

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The bibliometric and visualization of a journal informs the editorial team about its current situation. As an interesting and popular journal in the field of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), WORK is a good target for bibliometric analysis and visualization.

OBJECTIVE:

To conduct an overview of WORK from a bibliometric perspective.

METHODS:

Using the Scopus database, the present bibliometric study was carried out to evaluate WORK from its whole life (1990–2022). Data extraction was performed on May 8, 2023. Using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer software, bibliometric analysis and visualization approaches were conducted. Related findings such as various indices trends, co-authorship as well as most cited and most productive authors, highly cited papers, and most productive countries were introduced and discussed.

RESULTS:

Overall, positive trends were observed in published documents and received citations by WORK. The top-cited paper in WORK had 478 citations. Straker, Innes, and Jacobs were the most cited authors with nearly 500 citations. American and European countries had more contributions to WORK. The same findings were obtained regarding international cooperation. The co-occurrence of keywords showed that WORK covers all aspects of OHS with more emphasis on the Ergonomics issues.

CONCLUSIONS:

The positive trends in published papers as well as its impacts proved the fact that WORK is progressing year by year. The findings of the present study can be useful both for audiences and the editorial team of WORK.

Keywords

bibliometric analysis visualization VOSviewer citation Scopus

1. Introduction

Focusing on previous studies can reveal valuable studies in any research area. It can also be useful to develop the literature and to identify key authors and topics in that research area [1, 2]. Moreover, it can present research trends based on previous research and identify the knowledge gaps [3]. These are some benefits of scientometrics techniques [4].

Scientometrics is a cross-disciplined science with a wide range, and it can quantitatively evaluate various aspects of sciences and scientific research. These evaluations are the main factors important for developing a specific science resulting in maximum human and financial resource productivity [5].

Scientometrics studies enable the investigation of several aspects related to scientific production. These include assessing the quantity, quality, and impact of research output. Additionally, scientometrics allows us to position a journal within both national and international contexts, comparing it to other journals in the same field [6]. Furthermore, analyzing journal citations provides valuable insights into paper citation counts, identifying influential or highly cited papers. Such information can inform decision-making and guide future journal policies [7].

The primary method for disseminating recent scientific findings is through scientific journals. Publishing papers in these journals captures the interest of scientists and other academics due to their concise, novel, and precise findings within a specific field of study [8]. Consequently, numerous scientific journals emphasize the importance of expert peer reviews and rigorous investigations [4]. Notably, the quantity and quality of scientific journals, along with their public utilization, serve as key indicators of scientific growth within any community [9].

The evaluation of scientific activities serves as a critical factor for detecting the strengths and weaknesses within the knowledge production process. As impartial observers, we identify areas for improvement and provide valuable insights to journal editors and executives regarding the current state. This information empowers them to make informed decisions aimed at enhancing their journals [4, 6, 10, 11]. Given the significance of journals, rigorous evaluation remains essential. Numerous researchers have previously addressed this important issue, and the following summary highlights related literature.

Carey L.B. et al. conducted research entitled “bibliometric analysis of religion and health magazine: sixty years of publication (1961–2021)”. It provides insight into JORH’s publication trends, citation history, featured topics, author collaborations, and its overall contribution to the field of religion and health. They reported that over time, the number of JORH publications, citations, and article downloads has increased significantly, as have the leading journals and diverse contributions to the study of religion, spirituality, and health [12]. Ardiansiah et al. conducted a scientific mapping of concrete composites as radiation shields in their review. Their results showed that the number of published documents in this research area has grown recently. Some countries collaborate with the widest range of partners to enhance productivity and influence in their countries and regions. This study will focus on journals with the highest number of articles and the most frequently cited documents. Additionally, keyword analysis was conducted to identify hotspots related to this research topic. This paper will help scientists understand, from a bibliographical perspective, the development of concrete composite materials as radiation protection research. It provides a highly stable absorption alternative to lead-based (Pb) concrete from waste and natural materials [13]. Donthu, N. et al. have conducted a study titled “Forty-five Years of Journal of Business Research: A Bibliometric Analysis” [14]. Moreover, Nandiyanto and Al Husaeni conducted a bibliometric analysis of material research in an Indonesian journal using VOSviewer [15]. The literature review demonstrates that the bibliometric analysis and visualization of a scientific journal are crucial issues from the researchers’ point of view.

WORK is one of the popular journals in the field of Occupational Health and Safety. The following statement is the aim and scope of WORK according to its official web page:

“A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation is an interdisciplinary, international journal which publishes high quality peer-reviewed manuscripts covering the entire scope of the occupation of work. The journal’s subtitle has been deliberately laid out: The first goal is the prevention of illness, injury, and disability. When this goal is not achievable, the attention focuses on assessment to design client-centered intervention, rehabilitation, treatment, or controls that use scientific evidence to support best practice.”

Up to now, a bibliometric analysis of this journal has not been conducted. Given the issue’s significance, this research aims to examine the scientific publications of global researchers in the field of WORK. The study seeks to identify key research and academic centers, as well as prominent researchers, providing insights into scientific competition and fostering national and international cooperation.

2. Methods

In the present study, several issues such as publications trends and types and Cite Score (Scopus metric that shows journal impact, calculated by dividing the total number of citations by the total number of published documents over three years) were examined. Trends in citation distribution, the most cited papers, the most productive and highly cited authors, as well as organizations and countries in WORK were considered. Also, we utilized co-authorship and co-occurrence of keyword maps to illustrate the connections between authors, keywords, and refereed documents in WORK. It should be noted that data regarding Cite Score, citations, and related information were exported from the Scopus database. The authors did not use manual calculations in this study.

The co-authorship maps focus on authors and their affiliations to reveal the cooperation networks among them [16]. The co-occurrence of keywords is essential for identifying the most important keywords used in published documents to create a map. The purpose of its application is to illustrate the conceptual research background and to enhance understanding of the pattern of published documents [17]. Co-authorship maps simply show the scientific relationship between two or more authors to create a scientific product. They are considered the most tangible and documented form of scientific cooperation and the most formal manifestation of collaboration among authors in producing scientific research [18]. The co-occurrence of keywords depicts the most important research topics in an area using the frequency of keywords. It is one of the most influential scientometrics methods used by many researchers as a powerful tool to discover knowledge in citation databases [19].

To search for data gathering in the present study, keywords were used in the specified field of the title without any limitations. All types of documents (e.g. research articles, conference papers) published by WORK were included in the study. Data were exported and presented in the form of tables, maps, and figures, aligned with the study’s objectives. The entire lifespan of the journal was investigated, spanning from 1990 to 2022. Notably, data extraction occurred on May 8, 2023. The extracted data were saved as a CSV file using Microsoft Excel. Through this software, we identified the most cited authors, papers, and countries. Additionally, trend charts were generated. Subsequently, VOSviewer software facilitated the creation of related tables and maps, including co-authorship and keyword co-occurrence analyses.

3. Results

WORK is indexed in several databases such as ISI, Scopus, Engineering Index Science Citation Index, Ergonomics Abstracts, NIOSH Database, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Embase. It began its work on the Scopus database by publishing 10 papers in 1990 under the founding of IOS Press publisher. This journal achieved an H-index of 56 with a CiteScore of 2.6 in 2022. The counts of published documents over the years are depicted in Fig. 1. As can be seen, the overall trend of publication in WORK is positive, with the published documents increasing from 10 documents in 1990 to 443 in 2022. It is worth mentioning that 2012 with 1261 published documents, was the peak of publishing in WORK lifetime.

Fig. 1.

The trend of published documents by WORK between 1990 and 2022.

In our comprehensive analysis of document types published by WORK, we observed a predominant focus on articles (3629) and conference papers (1217). Additionally, the journal featured reviews, editorials, notes, short surveys, letters, errata, books, and conference reviews (Fig. 2). Notably, the surge in conference papers is evident in Fig. 3, with WORK initiating conference paper publications in 2011 (11 documents) and peaking at 1080 papers in 2012. Subsequently, the number of conference papers declined, stabilizing at 106 documents in total during subsequent years (2013 to 2022).

Fig. 2.

Description of various types of documents published by WORK between 1990 and 2022.

Fig. 3.

The trend of conference paper published by WORK during the investigation time.

In Fig. 4, the status of CiteScore for WORK has been depicted. As can be seen in Fig. 2, the CiteScore of WORK has increased from 1.1 in 2011 to 2.6 in 2022. Regarding the decrease in CiteScore values in some years (i.e., 2012 and 2020), there is a positive trend.

Fig. 4.

The status of WORK CiteScore over the years.

The top 10 highly cited papers published in WORK have been listed in Table 1. The most cited paper entitled “Pretest-posttest designs and measurement of change,” was published by Dimitrov & Rumrill in 2003 and received 478 citations. The paper titled “Using Scoping Literature Reviews as a Means of Understanding and Interpreting Existing Literature,” published by Rumrill et al. in 2010, ranked second with 213 citations.

Table 1.

The top 10 highly cited papers published in WORK.

Title	Author(s)	Year	Citations
Pretest-posttest designs and measurement of change	Dimitrov, D.M., Rumrill Jr., P.D.	2003	478
Using scoping literature reviews as a means of understanding and interpreting existing literature	Rumrill, P.D., Fitzgerald, S.M., Merchant, W.R.	2010	213
Return-to-work: The importance of human interactions and organizational structures	Friesen, M.N., Yassi, A., Cooper, J.	2001	153
Understanding the stigma of mental illness in employment	Krupa, T., Kirsh, B., Cockburn, L., Gewurtz, R.	2009	152
Touch-screen tablet user configurations and case-supported tilt affect head and neck flexion angles	Young, J.G., Trudeau, M., Odell, D., Marinelli, K., Dennerlein, J.T.	2012	148
Validity of work-related assessments	Innes, E., Straker, L.	1999	145
Reliability of work-related assessments	Innes, E., Straker, L.	1999	137
Economic stress in the workplace: The impact of fear of the crisis on mental health	Giorgi, G., Arcangeli, G., Mucci, N., Cupelli, V.	2015	129
Comparing groups on latent variables: A structural equation modeling approach	Dimitrov, D.M.	2006	127
Computer vision syndrome: A review	Gowrisankaran, S., Sheedy, J.E.	2015	121

Moreover, Table 2 lists the top 10 most cited authors. It was found that Straker is the most cited author in WORK, with 581 citations received for their 14 papers. Innes and Jacobs were in second and third places with 514 and 492 citations, respectively. The top 10 authors received a total of 3822 citations.

Table 2.

The top 10 most cited authors in WORK.

Authors	Papers (n)*	Citations (n)
Straker. I	14	581
Innes, E	13	514
Jacobs, K	58	492
Shaw, L	25	386
Alexanderson, K	18	330
Rumrill, P. D	19	325
McMahon, B.T.	15	324
Kirsh, B	7	297
Dennerlein, J. T.	10	296
Fitzgerald, S. M	11	277

The most productive institutes and/or universities were California University (119 published documents) and Boston University (103 published documents). Moreover, the most financially supportive organizations were the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (23 documents) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, abbreviated as NIOSH (23 documents).

The authorship network in WORK has been presented in Fig. 5. Considering a minimum of 5 documents for each author, we included 292 authors in the VOSviewer analysis. The resulting network map comprises 50 items, 10 clusters, and 83 links (with a total of 195 connection strengths). Cluster 1 contains eight authors, representing intra-cluster authorship relationships. Additionally, Cluster 2 consists of seven authors and subsequent clusters also exhibit specific author counts. The number of links reflects the relationship between authors, and high connection strength indicates greater cooperation among them. Notably, Karen Jacobs emerges as the most productive author, with the strongest links to other co-authors in the published documents by WORK.

Fig. 5.

The authors scientific map and co-authorship network in WORK.

The co-occurrence of keywords in WORK has been depicted in Fig. 6. As can be observed, six clusters were identified in this map, with 14,000 keywords and 858,817 links in total. These six clusters have been displayed as blue, red, green, olive, violet, and cyan colors. The term “human,” with 4846 co-occurring instances and 81,346 links is the most frequently used keyword in published documents. The “humans” with 4504 co-occurring and 77399 links is in second place. Among the most frequently used keywords were ergonomics, vocational rehabilitation, and employment.

Fig. 6.

The co-occurrence of keywords in WORK.

Another interesting finding of this study is the identification of the most productive countries in terms of published papers by WORK. As listed in Table 3, the top 10 productive countries in WORK were the United States, Brazil, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Iran, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, and India. These countries published 4161 documents which received 12,3634 citations. It should be noted that the total link strength represents the level of cooperation between each country and other countries. In this regard, the United States, with a total link strength of 388, had the highest level of cooperation with other countries.

Table 3.

Top 10 most productive countries WORK.

Country	Documents	Citations	Total link strength
United states	1611	33700	388
Brazil	473	26783	262
Canada	496	13331	252
Sweden	415	8381	162
Australia	286	8256	129
Iran	202	7901	138
Netherlands	183	7834	140
United Kingdom	167	6215	19
Germany	166	6033	58
India	162	5200	96
Total	4161	123634	1644

4. Discussion and conclusion

Recent advancements in science and technology owe much to the publication of scientific findings. Scientific journals serve as the most popular platform for scientists to showcase their research accomplishments [1, 4, 7]. Evaluating scientific journals is crucial for both the audience and the editorial board. WORK is one of the popular journals that publishes valuable papers across various categories, including ergonomics, health, and safety, with the aim of preventing illness, injury, and disability among occupants. Consequently, our present study employs bibliometrics and visualization techniques to comprehensively describe the journal’s trajectory. Through this analysis, we gain valuable insights into publication trends, citations, the most productive authors, and contributing countries.

The initial finding pertains to publication trends and the number of citations received by the journal WORK over its lifespan. Notably, citation counts, and h-index values vary based on the research area. In fields like Chemistry and Environmental Science, where numerous research topics and researchers exist, more studies have been conducted, resulting in higher citation rates [4]. Conversely, in specialized areas like ergonomics and specific topics within occupational health and safety, fewer researchers lead to less research output and fewer citations. Comparing journals directly is problematic, but self-comparisons within a journal are valid [20].

The initial finding pertains to publication trends and the number of citations received by the journal WORK over its lifespan. Notably, citation counts, and h-index values vary based on the research area. In fields like Chemistry and Environmental Science, where numerous research topics and researchers exist, more studies have been conducted, resulting in higher citation rates [4]. Conversely, in specialized areas like ergonomics and specific topics within occupational health and safety, fewer researchers lead to less research output and fewer citations. Comparing journals directly is problematic, but self-comparisons within a journal are valid [20]. Our investigation in this regard showed that WORK began by publishing 10 papers in 1990, and it has since increased to the publishing of 443 papers in 2022. Further investigation regarding document types showed that majority of published documents were articles and conference papers. It is worth mentioning that the year 2012 was the most active year for WORK, with 1261 documents published. Out of 1261 published documents in 2012, 1080 documents were conference papers. Although 2012 was not the only year that WORK published conference papers, after 2012 the number of published conference papers were reduced. The sharp increase in published documents (regardless document types) in 2012 may be due to the indexing of the journal in Scopus. WORK was indexed in Scopus in 2011, increasing researchers’ willingness to publish in WORK after its inclusion in Scopus. This also resulted in a sharp decrease in its CiteScore in 2012. As previously defined, CiteScore depends on the number of publications. With a sharp increase in the number of published documents in 2012 (with more than 1000 conference papers), the CiteScore decreased significantly. In 2020, a similar decrease in CiteScore was observed. As shown in Figs. 1 and 4 reveal that the number of published papers increased from 219 in 2019 to 285 in 2020. However, this growth was accompanied by a slight decrease in CiteScore compared to 2019. The emergence of COVID-19 in late 2019 prompted the publication of several influential papers in 2020 and beyond, resulting in an increase in received citations. Overall, WORK exhibits positive trends in both publications and citations, reflecting the editorial board’s efforts to establish policies aimed at publishing high-quality papers. These findings align with Carey et al.’s observations in JORH [12].

The study results reveal that certain review papers, despite being published less than ten years ago, have received significant citations among highly cited articles. This finding underscores the higher frequency of citations for review articles compared to other types of scholarly content. Similar studies corroborate this observation [4]. As a strategic recommendation, the journal’s editorial board should consider inviting well-known authors to contribute review articles in each issue. This approach can enhance the journal’s visibility and boost its citation indices

In this study, we identified the most cited authors in WORK. Notably, Straker, Innes, and Jacobs received 581, 514, and 492 citations, respectively. Visualization results positioned Jacobs at the center of the map, suggesting her influence as one of the key authors in WORK. Remarkably, Jacobs also boasts the highest number of co-authorships in published papers. Further investigation revealed that she serves as the editor-in-chief of WORK. Given the typical practice of journal editors publishing editorials in most issues, Jacobs likely plays a significant role in coordinating paper publications within the journal

Our analysis revealed that the most productive countries in WORK were American and European countries. However, Asian countries, with the exception of Iran and India, contributed less to WORK. Several factors may explain this disparity, including researchers’ unfamiliarity with WORK in those countries, a limited number of researchers focusing on WORK-related topics, and potential inconsistencies between those countries’ policies and WORK’s scope. Interestingly, both Iran and India appeared in the list of the top 10 most productive countries. Notably, WORK enjoys recognition among Occupational Health and Safety experts and Ergonomists in Iran.

The co-occurrence of keywords in WORK, as revealed by this study, demonstrates that WORK comprehensively covers all aspects of occupational issues outlined in its ‘aim and scope.’ Notably, the most frequently recurring keywords within WORK include ‘Human,’ ‘Humans,’ ‘Ergonomics,’ ‘Psychology,’ ‘Employment,’ and ‘Rehabilitation.’ These keywords highlight that the majority of published papers are related to various facets of human health and safety. Among the diverse fields within Occupational Health and Safety (including Physical Agents, Toxicology & Chemical Agents, Safety, and Ergonomics), the most commonly occurring keywords are associated with Ergonomics. Additionally, the keyword ‘COVID-19’ appears prominently among the repetitive keywords, highlighting WORK’s significant contribution to research publications in this area.

In conclusion, the positive trends in published papers, as well as their impacts (e.g., increases in CiteScore and Impact Factor), demonstrate that WORK is progressing year by year. Authors worldwide have contributed to WORK; however, American and European countries have made more significant contributions compared to Asian and African countries. Moreover, it was found that WORK covered all aspects of occupation-related issues, with a greater focus on topics related to Ergonomics. Therefore, it is highly recommended to publish papers in various occupational areas such as Toxicology & Chemical Agents and Safety. We hope that our results have provided a clear vision for both the editorial board and the audiences of WORK. We also recommend conducting similar bibliometric analyses for other journals in the field of Occupational Health and Safety.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the editorial board as well as reviewers of WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation. Their unwavering dedication ensures the publication of high-quality and valuable papers in the field of Occupational Health and Safety. We wish them continued success and excellence.

ORCID iD

Ramin Rahmani

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Informed consent

Not applicable.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding

Not applicable.

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