Authorial Influence in Orthodontic Scholarship: A Comparative Analysis of Authors Impact Across Three Leading Orthodontic Journals

OBJECTIVE: To perform an authorship-focused bibliometric analysis of highly cited authors who published in the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics (AJODO), Angle Orthodontist (AO), and European Journal of Orthodontics (EJO). Furthermore, to evaluate the effect of journal type on bibliometric indices, and identify predictors of total citations. METHODS: A bibliometric analysis using Dimensions Analytics and Scopus (inception-April 2025) identified authors with > 100 citations who published in the AJODO, AO, and the EJO. Extracted data included author-level metrics (total citations, citations per document, publication count, h-index, field-weighted citation impact (FWCI), collaboration, number of coauthors) and regional and institutional information. Descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and variable importance analysis were performed. RESULTS: Authors with > 100 citations were common in AO (n = 230), followed by AJODO (n = 133) and EJO (n = 68). Compared with AJODO, authors publishing in AO and EJO had significantly lower total citations (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.52 and 0.57, p < 0.001), citations per document (0.52 and 0.54, p < 0.001), number of publications (0.47 and 0.51, p < 0.001), h-index (coefficients -15 and -18, p < 0.001), and number of coauthors (IRR 0.38 and 0.46, p < 0.001). No significant differences were observed between journals for collaboration or FWCI. Citations by documents and h-index were the strongest predictors of citation counts. CONCLUSIONS: Although most highly cited authors were from AO, AJODO authors had higher citations, publications, and h-index. Authorial influence is multidimensional, and robust evaluation requires a combination of citation metrics, productivity measures, and context-specific assessments.