From Research to Impact: Assessing a Decade of CDC’s Public Health Science by Topic Area, 2014-2023
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Objectives
This study provides an objective, in-depth overview of a large body of science output addressing public health. We apply topic modeling and bibliometric tools to explore the relevance and impact of a decade of CDC-authored publications.
Methods
We identified 34,104 scientific publications from 2014-2023 with ≥1 CDC-affiliated author using Science Clips, a CDC library database. We applied a large language modeling framework using BERTopic to publication titles and abstracts to identify public health topic themes. We obtained data from Altmetric, Dimensions, and BMJ Impact Analytics for these publications to bibliometric indicators. We assessed the percent with attention, academic citations, and policy citations using appropriate publication year ranges. We assessed the median Altmetric attention score, median academic citations, and the percent with policy citations for publications by topic area.
Results
Of publications from 2014-2020, 95% were cited by academic papers and 52% were cited in clinical guidance or policy. Of publications from 2014-2023, 84% garnered online attention. CDC-authored publications clustered into 46 public health topic themes. Among these, fungal infections had the highest median number of academic citations (36.5), mining safety and health had the highest proportion of papers with policy citations (92.5%), and substance abuse or opioids received the highest median public attention (Altmetric Attention Score = 14). Nearly a third of topics ranked highly (in the top 5) for at least one bibliometric indicator.
Conclusions
Publications in this collection addressed an array of public health topic themes and demonstrated resonance within academic and policy arenas as well as with the public.
SUMMARY
What is the current understanding of this subject?
Public health science should address strategic priorities and translate to public health impact. CDC’s scientists publish over 3,400 articles per year on average, making it difficult to summarize the breadth of topics covered by these articles and how they affect downstream health outcomes.
What does this report add to the literature?
We used cutting-edge large language modeling techniques to categorize CDC-authored publications into 46 topic themes. These topic themes span both infectious and non-infectious disease, and cover topics involved in strategic priorities like emergency response. We assess simple indicators like academic citations, policy citations, and media attention by topic area to show that all topic themes have had measurable impact. Across all topic areas, CDC-authored publications are also highly cited in policy and clinical guidance, an indicator of translation to public health impact.
What are the implications for public health practice?
Public health research programs can use advances in large language modeling as well as simple indicators of reach and impact to better understand whether their publications address priority topics and translate to improving health outcomes. This overview of CDC research additionally promotes transparency about the activities of the nation’s foremost public health agency.
