Citation Obsolescence of Health Communication Research

Citation habits differ among research fields and that influences the obsolescence of their literature. This study’s aim was to assess the degree of obsolescence in the field of health communication (HC) by conducting a synchronous citation analysis, using reference data of articles in the Web of Science published in 2020 to 2022. The half-life, Price Index, mean and median citation age, and maximum citation years were used to evaluate the aging trend of HC literature. Our results show that the aging of HC follows the negative exponential aging model. Moreover, citation aging has accelerated: The citation half-life decreased from 7.49 to 6.91, while the mean citation age changed from 9.21 to 9.09, with a median citation age of 7 to 6. Meanwhile, the Price Index rose from 0.33 to 0.38. Overall, these results suggest the HC discipline is undergoing rapid development. Since the measured maximum citation age was 4 to 3 years, but 3 on average, a 3-year assessment period is appropriate for evaluating the impact factor of HC journals.