Scientific production of Brazilian graduate courses in Public Health during 1998-2006

O grande crescimento da p??s-gradua????o no Brasil, tamb??m observado na grande ??rea de Sa??de e na Sa??de Coletiva, torna necess??rio equacionar como se processa a difus??o cient??fica. An??lises qualitativas sobre as principais tem??ticas t??m sido feitas a partir das revistas cient??ficas e do diret??rio de grupos de pesquisa. O acordo feito entre a Abrasco e a CAPES abriu a possibilidade de explora????o de um banco de dados constru??do e usado para a avalia????o dos programas de p??s-gradua????o, sob outras perspectivas. Nesse trabalho, foram analisados os artigos completos registrados na base nos tr??s tri??nios do per??odo 1998 ??? 2006. Para tanto, fez-se uma padroniza????o dos t??tulos dos peri??dicos e dos t??tulos dos artigos completos publicados em peri??dicos, j?? que havia duplica????es, em grande parte devidas ?? coautoria de docentes de diferentes programas. Com isso, foi poss??vel construir um banco de dados no qual cada artigo ?? registrado uma ??nica vez, a partir do qual foi poss??vel analisar a evolu????o ao longo dos tri??nios dos peri??dicos mais frequentemente usados, n??mero de autores, idioma, nacionalidade das revistas e coopera????o interregional. Os dados aqui apresentados poder??o subsidiar as discuss??es sobre a produ????o cient??fica e difus??o do conhecimento na ??rea.The massive growth of graduate programs in Brazil, observed in the areas of Health Sciences and Public Health, makes it necessary to consider the processes underlying the diffusion of science. Qualitative analyses on the main themes of the field have been conveyed using scientific journals and a directory of research groups. The agreement made between ABRASCO and CAPES opened the possibility of using a database that, although construed for the evaluation of graduate programs, may be useful for different purposes. In this study, the full papers registered in three triennials from 1998 to 2006 were analyzed. In order to accomplish this it was necessary to standardize the titles of the scientific journals and also the titles of full text articles published, in large part because the co-authorship of researchers from different programs resulted in duplications of entries. Only then was possible to build a database where every article is registered no more than once. From this point, the changes throughout the three periods were analyzed, as well as the most frequently consulted journals, number of authors, language, national and foreign journals, and regional and interregional cooperation. The data presented here may be useful for the discussions on the scientific production and dissemination of knowledge in the area of Public Health