PATTERNS OF INFORMATION-TRANSFER IN HEALTH-EDUCATION - A BIBLIOMETRICANALYSIS OF THE RESEARCH LITERATURE

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which health edu cation has become a distinctly separate field of inquiry as evidenced by the patterns of information transfer in the health education resear ch literature. Bibliometric analysis is used to determine: (1) if heal th education has an identifiable core of journals, (2) the extent to w hich health education research is derivative of research from other di sciplines and (3) the extent to which research from other disciplines draws upon research published in health education journals. The result s suggest that there is an identifiable core of journals that serve to characterize health education as a distinct field of inquiry. However , health education research is found to be more derivative of research from other fields than are the other comparative fields in the sample . Moreover, researchers in other disciplines use health education rese arch less than half as often as health education uses its own research . Differences in citing patterns in journals dedicated to health educa tion and by researchers publishing on health education topics in resea rch journals of other areas seem to indicate that health education res earch is not one unified undertaking.