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INTRODUCTION
Critical reviews are an important genre of scientific communication, through which recently published works (mainly comprising books, but not limited to them) are presented, analyzed, and discussed. This analysis is conducted based on the theoretical frameworks of the field of knowledge surrounding the work’s topic and the experiences of its authors. This textual genre is found in scientific journals across various fields, including Collective Health, contributing to the critical dissemination of knowledge and emerging themes within the historical contexts of each field.
As Moreira1 states, the critical review generates a virtuous circle in which the author of the reviewed work, the work itself, and the reader/author of the review reach other potential readers through the conquest, the restlessness, and the desire that their critical can awaken. The author who intends to write a critical review requires knowledge and intellectual maturity to establish comparisons, evaluate, and showcase critical arguments2.
Paiva and Duarte2 affirm that the critical review genre is a variable production that evokes social images in its readers about a given subject/work. As a succinct text, it has two essential features: information and opinion. Information, in this case, refers to the characteristics of the reviewed work and the themes it addresses. Opinion, in turn, aligns with the author’s critique of the work itself. In this last aspect, scientific journals in Collective Health/Public Health expect articles of this genre to present an analysis of the field of knowledge, dialogue with concepts and authors in the area based on the work’s approaches and, when applicable, even a brief reference to the “state-of-the-art” to support their critical analysis1.
Despite being one of the types of articles accepted in scientific journals, critical reviews have received less attention in studies analyzing scientific production. Revisiting an editorial collection of these publications over time allows us to understand the dynamics of bibliographic reception, author profiles, and thematic trends in a given field of knowledge.
Specifically, in Collective Health, an important scientific communication outlet that also accepts and publishes critical reviews is the journal Ciência & Saúde Coletiva (C&SC). C&SC began publication in 1996 and, initially, published one issue every six months. From 2002 to 2006, it published quarterly issues, from 2007 to 2010, bimonthly issues, and from 2011 onward, it began publishing monthly. Its issues include thematic articles, free-topic articles, articles for the editorial sections, reviews, opinion pieces, letters, and critical reviews, the latter comprising a significant collection over its nearly 30 years of existence.
Considering the existing gap in studies focused on analyzing publications on critical reviews and their importance for various areas of knowledge, this article aims to identify and characterize the collection of reviews published in C&SC from 1996 to 2024. This period covers 28 years of critical reviews published in this journal since its creation and can shed light on the most discussed topics that have been the object of interest of renowned researchers in Brazil and other countries, and indicate new paths.
METHODS
This bibliometric study analyzed all critical reviews published in C&SC from its first issue in 1996 to the last in 2024. All articles classified as reviews were cataloged from the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) and included in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing the following information: publication year, authors, authors’ institution, information about the publication (number, volume, title), information about the book reviewed (title, year, publisher, country of publisher, language of publication), number of citations, number of full text views, number of complete readings (captures/readers), mentions on social media (Facebook and X social media were counted), and review keywords. For this last aspect, considering that critical review submissions, unlike other types of articles, do not require keyword descriptions, it was necessary to define the terms. To this end, we read all the critical reviews to extract the keywords most appropriate to the text produced, not the work being reviewed. We ran the analyses using Excel 365, WordClouds, and QGIS version 3.40.6. We performed bibliometric analyses, including descriptive analyses, a map of the location of the authors’ institutions of origin, and a word cloud.
RESULTS
In the period analyzed, 328 critical reviews were identified, which represents 4% of the total number of articles published by C&SC from 1996 to 2024 (n=8,237 publications). Figure 1 shows the progression in the number of published reviews and the number of citations per year.
In the first four years of its existence (1996-1999), an average of 4 critical reviews were published per year, rising to 9.9 between 2000-2009 and reaching 14.8 critical reviews per year in the 2010-2019 period. In the 2020-2024 period, the average number of critical reviews published per year was 13, indicating the possibility that, by the end of the period between 2020-2029, this number will be equal to or higher than that observed in the last decade. In 2025, up to the fifth issue of volume 30, no articles classified as critical reviews had been published. The number of citations to the works followed a similar pattern to the number of published critical reviews, showing an increase since the first editorial year, with the highest citation peaks in 2004 (n=313), 2005 (n=427), 2012 (n=522), and 2022 (n=728).
FIGURA 1
Analysis of the citations received showed that the total number of citations for the set of critical reviews was 3,462, with an average of 10.6 citations per article. Most critical reviews received at least one citation (n=193, 58.8%), and the average number of citations per critical review per year ranged from 0.5 in 1996 to 60.7 in 2022. Among the 135 articles that received no citations, 20% (n=27) were published in the last three years of the series analyzed, and 31.1% (n=42) were published up to 2005 (data not shown in tables/figures).
The ten most cited works include critical reviews from 2003 to 2022, with the work in tenth place having received 70 citations and addressing the topic of death. The first position was held by a critical review published in 2022 that addressed disease prevention in airports and severe acute respiratory syndrome, with 681 citations (Table 1).
QUADRO 1
In Figure 2, we can observe the number of citations and the number of texts read in full (full text views), saved for later reading (captures/readers), and tagged or mentioned on social media (Facebook and X). Notably, even in the years in which the critical reviews had a small number of citations, there was a large volume of text saves (around 1,200 in 2004 and 1,150 in 2013) and a high number of full text readings of the articles, and the highest peaks were around 350,000 in 2005, 330,000 in 2007, 400,000 in 2009, reaching 410,000 in 2012. Mentions on social networks such as Facebook and X were more evident in 2004 (83 mentions), 2015 (77 mentions), 2017 (131 mentions), and 2023 (101 mentions).
FIGURA 2
Another interesting aspect to note when analyzing published reviews concerns the topics covered by the papers. Figure 3 presents the word cloud extracted from the review keywords. The size of the words reflects the terms’ frequency, highlighting the thematic focuses in the set of publications: the longer the word, the more times it was mentioned. The predominant terms used are health, public health, public policies, violence, work, social sciences, violence, gender, collective health, epidemiology, anthropology, and the Unified Health System (SUS), indicating the centrality of structuring themes in Public/Collective Health. Terms related to important tools and principles in Collective Health and social sciences, such as methods, qualitative research, evaluation, ethnography, and ethics, are also observed. The terms gender, violence, racism, and work reveal the importance of discussions on the social determinants of health and the need for critical analyses anchored in the social and human sciences in health.
FIGURA 3
In addition to the diversity of topics covered in the reviews, it is interesting to note that a large proportion of the books reviewed are from Brazilian publishers (data not shown in the table/figure). Notably, almost all of the publishers of the books reviewed outside Brazil are located in North America (the United States of America, Cuba, Canada, and Mexico). However, books from European publishers (Austria, Spain, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland) and Asian publishers (Singapore and India) were also reviewed. Regarding the books reviewed, those written in Portuguese predominated (81.8%), followed by those in English (14%), Spanish (3%), and French (1.2%). Approximately 69.8% (n=229) of the total reviews analyzed were single-author works (data not shown in table/figure).
Regarding the journal’s scope and peer recognition, illustrated by the number of review authors from different institutions, a diversity of institutional affiliations is observed. Although only 3.7% of the 328 published reviews had as their lead author a researcher from a foreign institution (located in Argentina, Canada, Spain, France, London, Mexico, and Portugal), diverse Brazilian institutions are observed. Most authors (n=316) who published in the period analyzed are affiliated with institutions primarily located in the Southeast, followed by institutions in the Brazilian Northeast, Midwest, South, and North (Figure 4).
FIGURA 4
DISCUSSION
This article presents a bibliometric analysis of the set of articles classified as critical reviews published by C&SC from 1996 to 2024, as part of a thematic issue celebrating the journal’s 30th anniversary. This article aimed to identify and characterize the collection of published critical reviews to foster reflections and highlight some of the challenges of this type of scientific publication.
One of this study’s main findings was the gradual increase in the number of critical reviews published since the Journal’s first year. This reflects the commitment of authors who spontaneously propose writing a critical review article, and of the Editorial Board (associate editor and guest editors for thematic issues), which sometimes invites them to do so. We should emphasize that, even with the possibility of selecting books and emerging topics in Collective Health, accepted invitations do not always translate into published critical reviews, as some never make it to editorial review. Furthermore, this result may represent an increase in authors’ recognition of the potential of critical reviews in scientific dissemination.
Although critical reviews are articles with recognized authorship, some editors consider them uncitable works. However, as observed in this analysis, the number of citations to reviews published in Ciência & Saúde Coletiva has increased over the Journal’s nearly 30 years of existence, indicating that these works have scientific relevance, are a source of reference, and support other works in the field. Bibliometric studies on topics related to Collective Health show that the citation rates found for the reviews in this study are similar or even higher, considering the three most cited, whose values ranged from 332 to 681 citations. In their research on public health policies for youth, searching in the main Web of Science collection, Bizarria et al.3 found that the most cited article on this topic, published in 2007, received 126 citations (555 fewer than the most cited critical review in this study). Another bibliometric study on oral health and caries surveys, which collected articles published from 2010 to 20214, highlighted that the most cited was published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2011, with 263 citations, that is, less than half of the most cited in the present analysis.
Beyond citations, it is interesting to note that, even when not cited, published works received a significant number of reads and views, reinforcing the idea that emerging works are reaching new readers. This result can be seen in the scientific community’s growing interest in reviews during the period studied, reflected in the high rates of saving for later reading and full reading of this type of publication.
Another important aspect concerns the increase in the number of mentions on social networks, such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), since 2003, which has been called “altmetrics” or alternative metrics. Barros5 affirms that alternative metrics can be defined as the use of measures of academic impact based on activity in online tools and environments, and are considered a subset of webometrics and scientometrics.
According to Rezende & Drummond6, this has been an alternative way to identify the impact of scientific publications, in terms of visibility and reach, and includes mentions of the work on both academic (Academia.edu, Mendeley, Research Gate) and non-academic (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) social media platforms. Interestingly, the increase in the number of mentions received by reviews on social media may represent expanded knowledge among peers, considering the academic world, and the popularization of science among the lay public, who read, share, and comment on the observed results.
Unlike other types of articles, we observed that single authors or co-authors often produce critical reviews from the same institution, which made it impossible to carry out broader analyses of inter-institutional collaboration networks, a characteristic highly valued in bibliometric studies3,4,7,8. Most of the authors of the critical reviews published in C&SC are from institutions located in the Southeast, the same region as the Brazilian Collective Health Association, the Journal’s sponsor. Few authors were from institutions in the Brazilian North and South, which can be partially explained by the strong concentration of graduate programs, human resources, and financial resources in specific areas of the country.
A study by Sidone et al.,9 which sought to understand the state of Brazilian scientific publications and collaboration networks between 1992 and 2009, revealed that the Southeast and South concentrated more than three-quarters of the total number of publications between 2007 and 2009, followed by the Northeast (15%), the Midwest, and North, which together did not reach 10% of the national total.
Among the explanations for this concentration in the Southeast and South, the authors mainly pointed to the marked disparities in the distribution of scientific and technological resources, with the concentration of universities and research institutes historically consolidated in these regions, in addition to greater availability of human and financial resources with large research funding agencies (The São Paulo State Research Support Foundation-FAPESP, CNPq, CAPES, the Study and Project Financing Agency-FINEP, and the Minas Gerais State Research Support Foundation-FAPEMIG). Despite the greater concentration of publications by researchers affiliated with institutions in the Southeast, the authors also noted a reduction in the disparity in this number, considering the period analyzed (which they divided into three-year periods), with an increase of approximately 6% for the South and Northeast, showing that these regions have managed to increase their publications and collaborative networks.9 This disparity likely continues to this day, albeit to a lesser extent than during the period investigated by the authors, which may contribute to the data observed in this study.
The critical reviews published in the Journal’s almost 30 years have shown a diversity of themes and subjects covered, with public policies, public health, health care, and topics related to (quantitative and qualitative) research tools were the most frequently addressed. The studies analyzed (1996 to 2024) show how Collective Health has evolved and addressed emerging issues and how different social determinants affect the health of population groups, highlighting important concepts in the social sciences. In this sense, topics such as racism, violence, and labor were highlighted in the published critical reviews, highlighting their relevant relationships, an aspect frequently addressed in intersectionality studies.10,11
Issues related to gender and its nuances, such as masculinities, were also among the topics explored in the critical reviews. The contribution of C&SC to approaching gender-related aspects and its interface with health was already addressed by Villela et al.,12 in a study that sought to historically understand the Journal’s approach to the topic over the first 25 years. The authors conclude that the Journal’s focus on themes, with innovative discussions, thematic issues, and a gender-specific editorial section, broadens the offering and acceptance of works in this field. Perhaps these aspects observed in the articles also apply to critical reviews and explain the number of such reviews addressing this topic.
Another relevant and very current topic concerns mental health, which also deserves attention in the set of works analyzed. Although the topic has been present in Collective Health since the writings of Foucault13, with the work “History of Madness in the Classical Age”, published over 60 years ago (1961) and having a significant impact, especially with the Brazilian psychiatric reform, notably, this topic gained greater notoriety and increased discussion in health and labor after the 2020 health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Campos et al.14, in an analysis of publications in the field, discrimination and stigma related to mental health have increased since 2009 and, although there is a public policy implemented in the country, with a consolidated Psychosocial Care Network (RAPS), community assistance still faces some obstacles related to stigma and prejudice from the population and institutions and their stakeholders.
Other aspects related to mental health refer to the care of people with drug-related problems, which are still less frequently addressed by researchers.14 Thus, identifying the prominence of this topic in the critical reviews analyzed shows how mental health can be fruitful in Collective Health and how it continues to constitute a relevant topic for discussion.
Besides the positive aspects of the topics covered in the critical reviews, the keywords also identified gaps and challenges in producing critical reviews in Collective Health. Few or no studies were found addressing topics such as artificial intelligence and its interface with health, climate change and its impacts on Collective Health, decoloniality, accidents involving diverse groups of workers, media/social networks and violence, social dentistry, forced migration, and war refugees.
Although this work has highlighted the great potential and recognition of critical reviews as important sources of knowledge dissemination, the difficulty in conducting bibliometric studies with this type of scientific production has become evident. To perform bibliometric analyses and manipulate scientific data, it is necessary to install some complementary packages in the R software, for example, to provide additional functions and resources to the program. Therefore, after installing the “Bibliometrix” package, which is the main package used in bibliometric analysis, “Biblioshiny” is loaded, which consists of a web extension of the main “Bibliometrix” features. It aims to improve the visualization of the generated data through an interactive interface. This extension captures information stored on web platforms, such as Scopus, and thus enables bibliometric analysis.15 Ciência & Saúde Coletiva is available on the SciELO platform, which is part of the Scopus platform. However, the critical reviews’ dimensions are not included on this platform, which makes it impossible to study the networks and interconnections of productions and authorship.
This was perhaps the study’s most significant limitation, as traditional data search in the Scopus library failed to locate reviews in the “bib” format, which is commonly used by statistical programs like R for this type of analysis. The lack of keywords in the reviews also significantly hindered this type of analysis, as compiling the database for this study required individually accessing the full text of each critical review to extract this information. We did not identify any works that made similar analyses considering critical reviews, most likely due to the difficulties highlighted here.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The bibliometric study of the collection of critical reviews published in the nearly 30 years of C&SC revealed the relevance and diversity of this production in Collective Health. It also brought to light a type of scientific communication often undervalued but shows excellent potential for dissemination and debate, based on the critical work of the reader/author, on emerging themes in the field.
We should reiterate that reviews can be more important as a tool for scientific dissemination than scientific journals believe, and they have great potential for disseminating information and popularizing books, as they analyze, critique, and translate their content to other readers, especially the general public. In this sense, we advocate for greater attention from public health journals to include in their editorial policies the possibility of obtaining parameters similar to those of other scientific article publications in libraries that access their production.
Making a brief introduction to the review mandatory, accompanied by keywords, would be an unquestionable step forward in making the powerful output of this body of work more visible. These measures could facilitate the search for future bibliometric studies. We would also recommend encouraging critical reviews that address topics identified as missing and a diversity of authors with broad expertise and affiliations through this powerful scientific communication tool.
Even with the limitations highlighted in this article, which align with editorial policies and the metrics used for critical review-type articles, Ciência & Saúde Coletiva remains a promising and leading vehicle for the reception and scientific dissemination of relevant works and emerging themes.





REFERENCES
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