[Spanish medical center collaboration on smoking research from 1999 through 2003 according to the Science Citation Index].

Objective: To analyze the network structure of collaboration between medical centers sharing authorship of scientific articles on smoking.

Material And Methods: Articles reporting smoking research by authors from 2 or more Spanish medical centers between 1999 and the end of 2003 were identified through the Science Citation Index. The network of collaboration behind the research was analyzed and the most important measures of centrality were compared. To display the data, scientometric maps were constructed using UCINET and NETDRAW network analysis tools.

Results: Thirty-five Spanish medical centers (29 hospitals and 6 health care clinics) in 8 autonomous communities were involved in 21 collaborative research projects. Hospital de La Princesa was the network core institution with the highest degrees of nodal (16), closeness (88.66), and betweenness (39) centrality. Other core nodes in the network were the following hospitals: de Cruces, San Pedro de Alcántara, La Paz, Vall d'Hebron, and General Yagüe. The autonomous communities of Castile and Leon, Madrid, and Catalonia were assigned positions at the core of the intercommunity collaborative network based on coauthorship of scientific papers shared among their medical centers.

Conclusions: Network analysis helps identify the most influential institutions in a scientific community that generates coauthored articles in the field of smoking research. Hospital de la Princesa had the highest measures of centrality. The autonomous communities of Castile and Leon, Madrid, and Catalonia form a highly connected, cohesive subgroup within the network.