Trends in Authorship in American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education and 100 Pharmaceutical Journals (2021–2024)

BACKGROUND: Although short-term authorship trends in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (AJPE) have been examined, comprehensive long-term, field-wide assessments remain limited. OBJECTIVE: To (1) evaluate authorship trends in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (AJPE) from 1946 to 2024, and (2) examine the relationship between author growth rate and CiteScore across top pharmaceutical science journals (2021-2024). METHODS: Phase one analyzed 4,095 AJPE articles (3,697 originals; 398 reviews) indexed in Scopus. Publications were grouped by era to assess changes in average authors per article. Phase two examined 100 leading pharmaceutical journals (2021-2024), selected by publication volume. Data on publication count, total citations, authorship, and author growth rate were collected. Linear regression assessed the association between author growth (independent) and CiteScore (dependent). RESULTS: AJPE showed a steady rise in authorship, from 1.48 authors/article before 2000 to 3.50 in 2021-2024. In the broader pharmaceutical field (Phase two) 150,774 papers yielded 1,438,377 citations with average citations per article dropping from 16.4 in 2021 to 2.7 in 2024, reflecting citation lag. Among 100 journals, 137,717 papers involved 677,141 authors; 57 journals had increasing authorship. However, regression on 68 journals found no significant association between author growth and CiteScore. The regression coefficient was near zero. CONCLUSION: AJPE data confirm a decades-long rise in collaborative publishing.