Introduction

In this thematic series of Emerging Themes in Epidemiology, Fung provides a general overview of Chinese biomedical journals, and a focus on specialized journals in epidemiology, preventive medicine and public health [1]. Moreover, Fung examines two of the six core mainland Chinese biomedical bibliographic databases – WanFang Data and iLib – and emphasises that the Chinese interface of Google Scholar provides a convenient entry point to search for Chinese articles. His analysis complements a recent investigation by ** countries [19, 20].

Schistosomiasis japonica has been known in China for over two millennia, but the first case report from China was not published until 1905 [21]. Towards the end of the 1940s, the central government of China recognized the intolerable burden of schistosomiasis and initiated a national control programme [11, 12]. The third national sampling survey, completed in 2004, enrolled more than 250,000 individuals from 239 villages from the seven provinces where Schistosoma japonicum remains endemic. Human prevalence ranged from 0.3% in Jiangsu province to 4.2% in Hunan province. Extrapolating these data, the total number of infected individuals in China was estimated at 726,112 in 2004 [22]. This estimate translates to a reduction of 16.1% when compared with the previous national survey carried out in 1995, and dramatically lower than the 10 million Chinese estimated to be infected in the mid-1950s [11, 12].

Searching Chinese biomedical databases

To illustrate how to search and make use of the Chinese scientific databases, we provide the following example. The keyword "Schistosoma" () was used to search the CNKI and VIP databases. Publication dates were set from 1990 to 2006. The results were imported into the reference management programme EndNote version 9 (Thomson ResearchSoft, Stamford, USA). The articles were stratified by journals, and sorted in descending order, i.e. number of articles published in the specified time frame. The journals were subdivided into core and non-core journals. The name, year when the journal was launched, language (abstract and main text) and open access status were recorded.

Additionally, we performed a content analysis and grouped the identified articles according to the following categories: (i) development, validation and application of new tools, (ii) epidemiology, (iii) control, and (iv) other schistosomiasis-related research. This analysis was stratified into two time periods: (i) 1990–1999 and (ii) 2000–2006.

Key Chinese journals for schistosomiasis research

For the period 1990–2006, we obtained 10,244 hits in the CNKI and 5,975 hits in the VIP databases when using the keyword "Schistosoma" (). Figure 1 shows the number of hits per year for the two bibliographic databases. Three points are worth highlighting. First, more references were retrieved by the CNKI database compared with VIP in each year, but this gap has narrowed over time. Second, after a sharp increase in the number of hits on the CNKI database from 1993 (n = 255) to 1994 (n = 645), the annual number of hits in subsequent years remained relatively stable (602–838). Third, there was a gradual increase in the number of hits per year in the VIP database from 96 hits in 1990 to 585 hits in 2006.

Figure 1
figure 1

Number of hits for the keyword " Schistosoma " ( ) in two widely used Chinese databases: CNKI (white bars) and VIP (shaded bars) from 1990–2006.

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In the 17-year period we examined, the 10 leading Chinese journals publishing original research on schistosomiasis were (i) Chinese Journal of Schistosomiasis Control (Zhongguo Xue ** the Chinese Science Citation Database in terms of aggregated journal-journal citation relations. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol. 2005, 56: 1469-1479." href="/article/10.1186/1742-7622-5-19#ref-CR23" id="ref-link-section-d82418092e1112">23]. With regard to open access, this feature was available for China Tropical Medicine in 2005 and 2006 via the website [24]. The Chinese Journal of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases allowed open access sine 2003 directly on the journal website [25].

Content analysis

The retrieved Schistosoma-specific articles from the 10 leading Chinese journals were classified into four main groups, namely (i) new tools (e.g. development, validation and application of novel diagnostics, drugs and vaccines), (ii) epidemiology (e.g. epidemiological surveys, monitoring and surveillance), (iii) control (e.g. chemotherapy, health education, water supply and sanitation, and integrated control measures), and (iv) other research. Moreover, a temporal analysis was carried out, and we compared the relative frequencies of different research topics between the time periods 1990–1999 and 2000–2006.

Table 2 shows that in the 1990s, a total of 3,240 papers pertaining to different aspects of schistosomiasis were published in the 10 journals. One of the selected journals (China Tropical Medicine) was only launched in the new millennium, so the analysis of publications in the 1990s was based on nine rather than 10 journals. The development, validation and application of new tools and epidemiological research were the most important fields of endeavour, accounting for 26.8% and 29.5% of the original research articles published, respectively. With regard to new tools, diagnostics (11.9%) and drugs (9.7%) had a considerably higher share of the total publications than vaccines (5.2%). Publications with a focus on control accounted for 21.2%. The remaining publications (22.4%) pertained to other aspects of schistosomiasis research. Between journals, the proportions of each field of Schistosoma-related publications varied. For example, the Chinese Journal of Zoonoses published a large number of schistosomiasis- research articles that pertained to new tools (49.0%). Parasitoses and Infectious Diseases had the highest proportion of epidemiological research on schistosomiasis (45.2%). The two journals Practical Preventive Medicine and Journal of Public Health and Preventive Medicine had the highest share of articles dealing with schistosomiasis control: 39.2% and 38.6%, respectively.

Table 2 Total number of Schistosoma-specific articles published from 1990–1999 in the 10 leading Chinese journals publishing original schistosomiasis research articles in China, by major research topic
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In the period 2000–2006, a total of 2,448 articles with an emphasis on schistosomiasis had been published in the 10 selected Chinese journals (Table 3). We found slightly higher proportions of published research pertaining to the development, validation and application of new tools (30.5%) and epidemiology (26.6%) when compared with the 1990s. On the other hand, the frequency of articles that focused on schistosomiasis control issues had not changed much (21.2% in the 1990s and 21.7% in 2000 – 2006). Generally, the proportion of articles on different aspects of schistosomiasis published by the individual journals were similar between the 1990s and the new millennium. Our results suggest that the journals examined here place particular emphasis on specific topics, and hence develop specific niches. Parasitoses and Infectious Diseases, for example, primarily covered epidemiological research on schistosomiasis (56.6%), whereas in the Chinese Journal of Zoonoses and China Tropical Medicine, more than half of the schistosomiasis-related articles focused on the development, validation and application of new tools.

Table 3 Total number of Schistosoma-specific articles published from 2000–2006 in the 10 leading Chinese journals publishing original schistosomiasis research articles in China, by major research topic
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Harnessing the Chinese literature

Discovery, development and use of antischistosomal drugs

A total of 328 articles were retrieved in the CNKI database when we searched for publications pertaining to the discovery, development and use of antischistosomal drugs. A significant amount of research focused on praziquantel, an antischistosomal drug discovered in the mid-1970s by Bayer in Germany [26, 27]. The first clinical use of praziquantel in China dates back to the late 1970s [28]. Since then, praziquantel has become the drug of choice for the control of schistosomiasis worldwide [15, 29]. More than 50 million treatment courses have been administered in China and comprehensive reviews have recognised the significant contributions from Chinese clinicians and scientists towards the optimization of praziquantel use for individual treatment and community-based morbidity control [30,

Conclusion

China's social and economic advancement, its bountiful talent and the embrace of new technologies have all fuelled scientific research activities along with the development of important biomedical bibliographic databases. The potential of the Chinese literature to advance biomedical research has been stressed more than a decade ago [63], but challenges for the Chinese journals have also been highlighted [64, 65]. As our example in schistosomiasis research illustrates, the number of Schistosoma-related articles alone from China increased from 193 in 1990 to 676 in 2006 in the CNKI database and from 96 to 585 in the VIP database over the same time period. From these two databases we retrieved and analysed more than 3,000 articles focusing on original schistosomiasis research and determined the leading 10 Chinese journals in the field of schistosomiasis research. Most of the articles were published in Chinese, often with an English summary.

We have highlighted significant contributions from the Chinese literature, exemplified by two key areas of schistosomiasis research: (i) drug discovery, and (ii) molluscicides and environmental management for integrated control approaches. Research from China has enhanced our antischistosomal drug and molluscicidal armamentarium and the understanding of the local epidemiology and control of schistosomiasis. We have used one area of research as an example to illustrate how the Chinese scientific literature can influence global health and research. Unfortunately, there are often long delays in the international dissemination of important knowledge from non-English speaking countries such as China to the wider research community. Concerted efforts should be made and innovative methods developed to promote open, rapid and accurate access to new knowledge and to overcome language barriers.

Abstracts in non-English languages

The abstract of this paper has been translated into the following languages by the following translators (names in brackets):

  • Chinese – simplified characters (Dr. Qin Liu and Prof. **ao-Nong Zhou) [see Additional file 1]

  • Chinese – traditional characters (Dr. Qin Liu and Prof. **ao-Nong Zhou) [see Additional file 2]

  • French (Mr. Philip Harding-Esch) [see Additional file 3]

  • German (Dr. Peter Steinmann) [see Additional file 4]

  • Spanish (Ms. Annick Borquez) [see Additional file 5]

Additional Table 1

Characteristics of the 10 Chinese journals publishing the highest number of original schistosomiasis research articles were summarized in Additional Table 1. [see Additional file 6]