Historical development of the journal impact factor and its relevance for occupational health.

For better or for worse, the advent of journal impact factors last century marked a key turning point in the global development of scientific publication and referencing systems. Since that time however, the concept has attracted considerable attention from a variety of sources, and its usefulness for relatively small research fields such as occupational health, has also been debated. For these reasons, the current paper provides a descriptive history of the journal impact factor and a discussion of its relevance for occupational health. Developmental milestones, inherent shortcomings and future challenges are also described, along with techniques used for increasing the impact factor and some potential strategies for improvement of the citation indexing system. While many scholars now question its increasingly prominent role in the evaluation of scientific research, the journal impact factor continues to form an important component in the dissemination and retrieval of scientific literature in the occupational health field, as elsewhere. Due to the controversy incurred since its inception however, and the increasingly diverse manner in which it is now being used, it remains to be seen what the next 50 years of journal impact factors will bring.