Reviewing my Journal Table of Contents Alerts

Its 2013 and time to review my journal table of contents alerts.  I have decided to reduce the number of journals I will follow and focus on higher quality journals.  I sed the journal impact factor to review top ranked journals in public health/enviromental health. I know there is controversy as to whether the impact factor is the best guide to the importance of  journal so I used the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports which includes other metrics to fine tune my selection. Basically, impact factor was not so different to "Article Influence Score" for most of the public health/environmental health journals of interest - except for Annual Reviews in Public Health which is only ranked 5 in impact factor but number 2 in "Article Influence Score".   Here follows the journals dropped from the reading list in 2013, those added and those continued..



 So first the journals I have dropped:

• BMC Public Health - quality is just not there (yes I have published in it).
• BMC Environmental Health - same.
• JAMA - impact factor 30 but too narrowly clinical for my needs (compared to BMJ!)

Journals I have added

• Annual Reviews in Public Health - impact factor 5.451
• PLOS One - impact 4.411

Journals I have maintained:

• American Journal of Public Health - impact factor 3.926 
• BMJ - impact  14.093 (this is the one journal I would take to a tropical island!)
• NEJM  - impact 53.298
• Critical Public Health - can't find its IF, its radically critical!
• American Journal of Epidemiology - impact 5.216
• Environmental Health Perspectives - impact 7.04 

 I try to follow MMWR, Eurosurveillance, Promed, and CDI.  I am also setting up some research alerts such as "whats new PubMed" to hone down on particular authors. e.g. Michael Osterholm - anything he writes is worth reading, and then some others I follow using Google Scholar alerts to see if a particularly dodgy paper is being criticised.   I probably need to revise this list further.  Suggestions welcome.