Indexing and influence of Biomedical Human Kinetics

Study aim: Despite 15 years of continuous publication of Biomedical Human Kinetics (BHK), little is known about the journal’s contribution to knowledge in the field of kinesiology/exercise and sport science. This study documented the indexing and influence of articles published in the first 15 years of publication of BHK.

Material and methods: Coverage of BHK articles in five database services was documented. Citations and citation rates were compared for the top 20 cited articles indexed in the databases to document journal influence.

Results: BHK was thoroughly indexed by four of the five databases and the journal has a relatively low percentage of uncited articles in Google Scholar compared to many journals. The top 20 cited BHK articles had between 293 and 1,238 citations and had strong usage with mean citation rates between 2.2 and 5.5 citations/article/year across the databases. Differences in indexing of journals and citations across databases, however, resulted in substantial disagreement on the top 20 cited BHK articles.

Conclusions: For a relatively new journal in kinesiology/exercise and sport science, BHK had strong indexing, with citations and citation rates similar to some multidisciplinary journals and larger than many specialized journals in the field. BHK authors and editors, however, should carefully use multiple citation metrics from several database services to estimate the likely scholarly impact or prestige of individual articles published in the journal.