Quality assessment of schistosomiasis literature

Abstract

Average impact per paper, a refinement of the use of impact factor, was used to assess the quality of publications produced by a small group of sponsored researchers. The average impact per paper associated with half of the literature published by grantees has been shown to exceed those taken from the total literature at large. Moreover, this indicator appears to be stable over the five years tested. Compared with the schistosomiasis literature as a whole, the subset contributed by the grantees has consistently produced higher averaqe impact scores. These results stronqly suggest that substantial research support sustained over a significant period could foster high quality research.