PRODUCCIÓN CIENTÍFICA CON “VISIBILIDAD INTERNACIONAL” EN SALUD OCUPACIONAL EN AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE, 1998 – 2017.

Abstract

The objective of this article is to characterize scientific production with international visibility in occupational health in Latin America and the Caribbean, from 1998 to 2017. Method: Bibliometric study, which used the Scopus database. A searching strategy was defined that covers different areas of occupational health (safety, hygiene, ergonomics, psychosociology, occupational medicine and employment conditions). Original articles and reviews were included, analyzing: year of publication, type of document, language of the document, authors, country of affiliation of the authors; in addition to Impact Factor and SCImago Journal Rank of the journal where they were published. Absolute and relative frequencies were calculated for each variable, production rates. Results: The scientific production in occupational health presents a increase since 1998, with a peak in 2015 and a decrease from 2016. 90.9% of the documents correspond to scientific articles and 60.2% are written in English. The main producers are Brazil (64.8%), Mexico (10.7%) and Colombia (6.8%); however, Chile, Brazil and Costa Rica are the largest producers per million inhabitants. The United States is the largest international contributor and Brazilian journals cover more publications. Conclusions: The main characteristics, comparisons between countries, evolution of the scientific literature on occupational health in the Region and other variables that influence their international visibility are shown, serving as a starting point towards future research. In addition, there is evidence of the need to implement better policies in order to increase the R & D.