Fifty Years on: An Informetric Study of Kenya’s Health Problems, 1966–2015

Abstract

The study was aimed at identifying and mapping Kenya’s health problems between 1966 and 2015, using informetric techniques. A total of 11,028 journal articles were extracted from the MEDLINE database and analysed using various computer-aided software. Results indicate that the most problematic health issue as covered in the biomedical and health literature in Kenya is HIV/AIDS, followed by malaria and tuberculosis; the most researched and therefore affected age group is young adults aged between 19 and 44 years; most research target problems associated with the female population. There were strong correlations between the government of Kenya’s efforts in improving health and the volume of research; and there were weak and insignificant correlations between the burden of disease and the volume of research. The findings give credence to the effect that informetrics can be used to assess health problems in a given country.

Keywords: Informetrics, Health problems, Medical research, Health research Kenya, Research evaluation