Early scientific response to COVID-19 epidemic: a scientometric perspective
#MMPMIDC7543490
Golinelli D
; Nuzzolese AG
; Boetto E
; Rallo F
; Greco M
; Degli Esposti M
; Fantini MP
Eur J Public Health
2020[Sep]; 30
(Suppl 5
): ? PMIDC7543490
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BACKGROUND: The recent COVID-19 epidemic is showing how the response of the
scientific literature is fundamental in the first days following the onset of a
new epidemic. Quantifying which studies have a greatest impact can help
researchers and policymakers in controlling the epidemic. The aim of this study
is to describe the early scientific production in response to the COVID-19
epidemic through a scientometric analysis. METHODS: The study consisted of: 1)
review of the scientific literature produced in the 30 days since the first paper
related to COVID-19 has been published on Pubmed; 2) Identification of papers'
Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) and analysis of related metrics with the
construction of a 'Computed Impact Score' (CIS) that represents a unifying score
over heterogeneous bibliometric indicators. The CIS takes into account all the
bibliometric indicators both traditional (i.e. counting of citations) and
alternative (i.e. altmetrics). In this study we use the altmetrics provided by
Plum Analytics (PlumX). All bibliometric indicators for the selected papers have
been collected by using their corresponding DOIs as the key for querying Scopus
API, which integrates PlumX. On top of those indicators we compute the CIS. The
papers with higher CIS are discussed and presented. RESULTS: 239 papers have been
included in the study. A threshold for CIS of t?=?1.04 (i.e.95% quantile) allowed
us to record 8 papers as potentially impactful. The 8 papers are: 6 case reports,
1 methodological study, 1 editorial. First authors come from China (n?=?6), USA
(n?=?1) and Germany (n?=?1). The main topics are: case/s description (n?=?5),
outbreak investigation (n?=?2) and 1 genomic study. CONCLUSIONS: The early
response of the scientific literature during an epidemic does not follow a
pre-established pattern. Tracing the traditional and non-traditional metrics
measures of papers can help to understand and evaluate the impact of literature
on the scientific community and general population. KEY MESSAGES: The dynamic of
the scientific community represents an important aspect of the early response to
the onset of a new epidemic, which must be studied also to increase systems?
preparedness. In a connected digital world, tracing metrics measures of
scientific papers can identify those with the greatest impact and help
professionals to correctly inform the population.
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