Bibliometric analysis of the African Health Sciences' research indexed in Web of Science and Scopus

BACKGROUND: The Journal of African Health Sciences (AHS) is an internationally refereed journal in the field of health sciences with vast research contributions in the world and Africa region. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to document the scientific production and explore the AHS research bibliometric characteristics since its first issue. METHODS: A comprehensive retrospective bibliometric analysis was performed on AHS published documents indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus since the journal's first issue. The analysis was done using SPSS v. 22.0, Bibliometrix Package in R, and VOSviewer v.1.6.15. RESULTS: A total of 1649 and 1879 documents indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus were retrieved. The annual number of publications showed a significant increase in both databases. The most contributing countries (in WoS vs. Scopus) were; Nigeria (n = 393 vs. 276), Uganda (215 vs. 220) and South Africa (143 vs. 101). The most productive authors were “Tumwine JK”, “Mayanja-Kizza H”, and “Ocama P”. Makerere University, The University of Ibadan, and University of Nigeria were the most contributive institutions. International agencies mainly from the USA were the main funders of AHS documents. Analysis of keywords revealed the dominance of research topics with keywords such as HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Obesity, Hypertension, risk factors, infection, mortality, amongst others. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis has revealed the progress in the development and growth of scientific research from AHS. Moreover, top-cited documents-analysis has reflected its focus on health issues relevant to Africa. This analysis would help in evidence-based descriptions of AHS research output.