The first three years of the Journal of Global Health: Assessing the impact

The Journal of Global Health (JoGH) is three years old. To assess its impact, we analysed online access to JoGH's articles using PubMed Central and Google Analytics tools. Moreover, we tracked citations that JoGH received in 2013 using ISI Web of Knowledge(SM) and Google Scholar® tools. The 66 items (articles, viewpoints and editorials) published between June 2011 and December 2013 were accessed more than 50 000 times during 2013, from more than 160 countries of the world. Seven among the 13 most accessed papers were focused on global, regional and national epidemiological estimates of important infectious diseases. JoGH articles published in 2011 and 2012 received 77 citations in Journal Citation Reports® (JCR)–indexed journals in 2013 to 24 original research articles, setting our first, unofficial impact factor at 3.208. In addition, JoGH received 11 citations during 2013 to its 12 original research papers published during 2013, resulting in an immediacy index of 0.917. The number of external, non–commissioned submissions that we consider to be of high quality is continuously increasing, leading to current JoGH's rejection rate of about 80%. The current citation analysis raises favourable expectations for the JoGH's overall impact on the global health community in future years.