Access to human, animal, and environmental journals is still limited for the One Health community

Authors

  • Carol E. Vreeland DVM, MLS, AHIP, Associate Director, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine, NCSU Libraries, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health & Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, 1060 William Moore Drive, Raleigh, NC 27607
  • Kristine M. Alpi MLS, MPH, AHIP, Director, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine, NCSU Libraries, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health & Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, 1060 William Moore Drive, Raleigh, NC 27607
  • Caitlin A. Pike MLS, AHIP, Nursing and Medical Humanities Liaison Librarian, University Library, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 755 West Michigan Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202
  • Elisabeth E. Whitman MS, University Library Technician, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine, NCSU Libraries, North Carolina State University, 1060 William Moore Drive, Raleigh, NC 27607
  • Suzanne Kennedy-Stoskopf DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACZM, Research Professor, Ecosystem Health, Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, 1060 William Moore Drive, Raleigh, NC 27607

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2016.51

Keywords:

Publishing, Periodicals as Topic, Access to Information, Veterinary Medicine, Environment, Environmental Health, Medicine

Abstract

Objective: ‘‘One Health’’ is an interdisciplinary approach to evaluating and managing the health and well-being of humans, animals, and the environments they share that relies on knowledge from the domains of human health, animal health, and the environmental sciences. The authors’ objective was to evaluate the extent of open access (OA) to journal articles in a sample of literature from these domains. We hypothesized that OA to articles in human health or environmental journals was greater than access to animal health literature.

Methods: A One Health seminar series provided fifteen topics. One librarian translated each topic into a search strategy and searched four databases for articles from 2011 to 2012. Two independent investigators assigned each article to human health, the environment, animal health, all, other, or combined categories. Article and journal-level OA were determined. Each journal was also assigned a subject category and its indexing evaluated.

Results: Searches retrieved 2,651 unique articles from 1,138 journals; 1,919 (72%) articles came from 406 journals that contributed more than 1 article. Seventy-seven (7%) journals dealt with all 3 One Health domains; the remaining journals represented human health 487 (43%), environment 172 (15%), animal health 141 (12%), and other/combined categories 261 (23%). The proportion of OA journals in animal health (40%) differed significantly from journals categorized as human (28%), environment (28%), and more than 1 category (29%). The proportion of OA for articles by subject categories ranged from 25%–34%; only the difference between human (34%) and environment (25%) was significant.

Conclusions: OA to human health literature is more comparable to animal health than hypothesized. Environmental journals had less OA than anticipated.

Downloads

Published

2016-11-21