▲ Cover of ‘2012-2022 Comparative Analysis Report on Top 1% Cited Paper Performance in Major Countries’

Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s Paper on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Tops Citation List

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced that its paper introducing the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey has been selected as the paper with the highest number of citations in the general social science field in the ‘2012-2022 Comparative Analysis Report on the Performance of Top 1% Cited Papers in Major Countries’.

This achievement marks the fifth consecutive year that the paper has been selected as the most cited in the general field of social science in Korea, starting from 2020.

The paper, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology in 2014, provides general information about the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, including its purpose, survey items and methods, and data utilization plans. This effort aims to improve the policy and academic utilization of the raw data collected from the survey.

To promote data use, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has been disclosing raw data collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to the public through its website and providing online training materials on data analysis methods.

Additionally, the agency has been operating a remote analysis system to analyze limited public data and publishing ‘National Health Statistics Plus’, an in-depth analysis report of the National Health Survey, every year, to facilitate researchers’ work.

As a result, approximately 45,000 researchers have used this data, and approximately 3,400 papers have been published in overseas academic journals. The most common topics include obesity, metabolic syndrome, osteoporosis, mental health, and food intake.

Director Ji Young-mi of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency stated, “This achievement is the result of our efforts to improve the usability of the National Health and Nutrition Survey data, such as introducing new items, improving survey reliability, and enhancing the convenience of data use. This survey is Korea’s representative health survey and has been widely used abroad.”

The agency plans to continue improving the timeliness of the National Health and Nutrition Survey and expanding the use of data. Raw data on health information literacy, newly introduced in 2023, will be released at the end of this year. Starting in 2025, the follow-up survey will be introduced, and the result announcement period will be changed from December to September to increase the usability of the results.