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Impact Factors of Journals in Sport and Exercise Science, 1999-2001

Will G Hopkins

Sportscience 7, sportsci.org/jour/03/wghif.htm, 2003 (2205 words)
Will G Hopkins, Sport and Recreation, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 1020, New Zealand. Email. Reviewer: John A Hawley, Medical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3083, Australia.

Exercise and sport-science journals maintaining their impact in the most recent citation reports include Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise (current impact factor 2.4), American Journal of Sports Medicine (2.1), Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (1.6), European Journal of Applied Physiology (1.3), International Journal of Sports Medicine (1.3), International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism (1.2), and Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (1.2).  Journals on the rise include Journal of Applied Physiology (2.6), Sports Medicine (2.2), Journal of Biomechanics (1.9), Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology (1.4), and British Journal of Sports Medicine (1.0), while Journal of Sports Sciences (0.9) and Journal of Applied Biomechanics (0.3) have fallen substantially since last year. KEYWORDS: citation, publication.  Reprint pdf · Reprint doc · Spreadsheet

Update July 2003: the table and spreadsheet now include impact factors for 2002.  See also the In-brief item on impact factors in the current issue.

At the end of 2002 the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) published its annual update of Journal Citation Reports.  The journal impact factor, based on citations to journal articles published in 2000 and 2001, is probably the most interesting statistic in these reports. In an earlier article at this site I explained the meaning and significance of the impact factor and provided the values of the impact factor for journals in which researchers in our disciplines could publish their research.  I now provide the most recent values of the impact factor for these journals, along with the values for the previous two years (Table 1). You can access impact factors for other journals and other citation-related statistics at the ISI site, but only if your institution has a subscription.

Many of you will be interested in substantial differences in the impact factor between journals and substantial changes from year to year.  As I indicated in my previous article, most journals that specialize in exercise and sport have impact factors in the range of 1 to 5, and for journals in this range the value of the impact factor is accurate to within typically ±0.1. For individual journals, you can therefore be reasonably confident about differences or changes greater than ±0.1.  The smallest meaningful difference or change for these journals is probably somewhat larger, perhaps ~0.2.  On this basis, journals holding their rating include Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise (was 2.6, now 2.4), American Journal of Sports Medicine (unchanged on 2.1), Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (was 1.5, now 1.6), European Journal of Applied Physiology (was 1.4, now 1.3), International Journal of Sports Medicine (was 1.4, now 1.3), International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism (unchanged on 1.2), and Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (was 1.0, now 1.2).

In terms of increased impact, the winners this year are Journal of Applied Physiology (was 2.3, now 2.6), Sports Medicine (was 1.8, now 2.2), Journal of Biomechanics (was 1.5, now 1.9), Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology (was 1.1, now 1.4), and British Journal of Sports Medicine (was 0.7, now 1.0).  Journals that have lost some ground include Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine (was 1.3, now 1.0), Journal of Sports Sciences (was 1.3, now 0.9), and Journal of Applied Biomechanics (was 0.8, now 0.3).

On average, journals with impact factors in the range of 1 to 5 showed a trivial increase in impact (0.1).  Thus, there is little growth in our field overall.  However, the typical variation in the change from journal to journal was ±0.3, reflecting substantial movement in impact of disciplines and/or journals within the field.

 

Table 1: Impact factors (citations per article per year) of journals in exercise and sport science, including key multidisciplinary journals, for the years 1999 through 2002. Journals without an impact factor are not in ISI's science or social sciences databases, either because the journal is too new or the factor is too low. A question mark indicates absence of an impact factor for a journal previously in the database.  Download an enhanced version of this table as an Excel spreadsheet.

1999

2000

2001

2002

 

 

 

0.3

0.3

ACSM's Health and Fitness Journal

1.4

1.7

1.7

2.0

Acta Physiologica Scandinavica

0.6

1.3

1.3

1.5

Acta Psychologica

1.3

1.3

1.0

1.2

Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly

2.0

2.4

2.9

2.8

American Heart Journal

2.4

2.8

2.6

2.3

American Journal of Cardiology

4.0

5.0

5.0

5.6

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

4.0

3.9

3.9

4.2

American Journal of Epidemiology

1.6

1.0

0.9

1.1

American Journal of Health Promotion

0.8

0.7

1.0

0.8

American Journal of Human Biology

2.1

2.7

2.8

2.6

American Journal of Hypertension

0.9

0.9

1.0

0.9

American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

3.0

3.2

3.3

3.6

American Journal of Physiology: Endocrin Metab

2.7

3.2

3.2

3.4

American Journal of Physiology: Heart Circul Physiol

2.5

2.8

2.4

3.2

American Journal of Physiology: Reg Integ Comp Physiol

3.0

3.3

3.0

3.3

American Journal of Public Health

5.5

5.4

6.0

6.6

American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

2.3

2.1

2.1

2.3

American Journal of Sports Medicine

6.0

6.9

6.3

6.1

American Psychologist

1.1

0.7

1.0

1.1

Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism

1.0

1.4

1.6

1.7

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

5.5

7.1

7.8

7.9

Annual Review of Nutrition

20

19

13

16

Annual Review of Physiology

0.4

0.6

0.7

0.8

Applied Ergonomics

0.8

0.6

0.7

0.6

Applied Psychological Measurement

1.0

0.5

0.8

?

Applied Psychology-International Review

1.1

1.4

1.4

1.3

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

0.5

0.8

?

?

Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry

1.6

1.4

1.1

1.8

Arthritis Care and Research

 

 

 

3.4

Arthritis Research

1.3

1.2

1.3

1.8

Arthroscopy

2.9

3.4

3.5

3.3

Atherosclerosis

 

 

 

8.3

Atherosclerosis Supplements

 

 

0.09

0.1

Athletic Therapy Today

 

 

0.2

0.4

Australian Journal of Physiotherapy

0.5

0.7

0.7

0.7

Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine

0.9

0.8

?

?

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers

11

14

17

8.7

Behavioral and Brain Sciences

2.7

2.8

2.9

2.8

Behavioral Neuroscience

3.2

2.7

2.9

2.9

Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications

 

6.3

5.4

4.7

Biochimica Biophysica Acta-Bioenergetics

2.6

1.8

2.4

1.8

Biochimica Biophysica Acta-General Subjects

1.2

1.1

1.5

1.5

Biological Cybernetics

 

 

0.3

0.2

Biology of Sport

2.3

2.5

2.5

2.4

Brain Research

6.7

9.2

7.7

6.2

Brain Research Reviews

0.9

0.7

1.0

1.2

British Journal of Sports Medicine

3.4

5.3

6.6

7.6

British Medical Journal (BMJ)

1.3

1.1

1.4

1.2

Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology