The bibliographic impact of epidemiological studies: what can be learnt from citations?

Objective: To document one dimension of the impact of an epidemiological study through citations in scientific journals.

Methods: Two sets of articles from studies performed in France were considered. They presented original results on occupational risk factors for low back pain and upper limb disorders.

Socioeconomic, demographic, occupational, and health factors associated with participation in a long-term epidemiologic survey: a prospective study of the French GAZEL cohort and its target population.

The purpose of this paper is to examine personal and health factors, both at the beginning of the study and thereafter, associated with participation in the GAZEL cohort, set up in 1989 in a large French company. The authors used logistic regression to analyze the associations between participation and data available for both participants (n = 20,093) and nonparticipants (n = 24,829). Higher participation was associated with male sex, marriage, children, managerial status, and residence in particular regions.