A Scientometric Analysis of Africa’s Health Science Journals Indexed in International and Regional Databases: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to compare the geographic coverage, citation impact, subject trends and authorship collaboration pattern of African health science journals indexed in international and regional databases.Methods: Data was collected from Ulrichs web serials directory, Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, PubMed, Google scholar, African Index Medicus (AIM) and African Journals Online (AJOL) between February 2023 and May 2023. Data was analysed using summary descriptive statistics such as percentages and interquartile ranges, and through network visualisation.Results: More than 40 African countries had no any health science journal indexed in WoS, whereas 20 African countries did not have any health science journal indexed in AJOL and AIM. The Journal of Advanced research was the top performing journal on almost all journal metric lists such as Google scholar’s H5-Index, SNIP, Journal Impact Factor, and Citescore, except Journal Citation indicator.Conclusion: The coverage of African health science journals by international citation databases is still limited which result in low scientific impact of many African health science journals. Authorship collaboration is related to historical ties among countries.