Decades of Scholarly Influence: A Bibliometric Analysis of Prolific Authors and Impact Trends in the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics

BACKGROUND: Despite the existence of the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedic (JPO) as a leading platform for pediatric musculoskeletal research since 1981, comprehensive bibliometric analyses of authorship, publication data, and journal impact over its decades of history remain limited. METHODS: All JPO articles from 1990 to 2024 were extracted from Web of Science. The 100 most prolific authors were identified. Their professional backgrounds, institutional affiliations, and publication metrics including authorship positions and H-index were analyzed. JPO's citation trends, journal impact factor (IF), normalized Eigenfactor (nEF), geographic distribution of citations, and open-access utilization were extracted from Journal Citation Reports and compared with the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics B and Journal of Children's Orthopaedics. RESULTS: A total of 6834 articles and 14,671 authors were identified. The top 100 authors (0.7%) were predominantly orthopaedic surgeons (91%) and United States-based (90%). One in 4 surgeons held an advanced degree beyond a medical degree. Surgeons had higher odds of holding senior (OR: 12.7, 95% CI: 7.9-20.5) and first authorships (2.1, 1.4 to 3.1). Female authors were underrepresented overall (12%) and among surgeons (6, 7%; P < 0.001), although female and male surgeons did not differ in average number of senior authorships (F 11.8±4 vs. M 18.2±10.4; P = 0.09). The mean H-index for surgeons was higher than other authors (17.9±5.5 vs. 14.6 ±1.8; P = 0.04). JPO's IF increased 152% since 1997. International contribution rose from 28% to 39% since 2019. Use of open-access rose to 5.1% of yearly publications in 2024 although open-access articles did not show higher odds of being cited (95% CI: 0.9-1.4). CONCLUSIONS: JPO's sustained growth and scholarly impact over 3 decades, driven largely by highly academic orthopaedic surgeons and increasing interdisciplinary and international contributions, highlights the Journal's role in advancing pediatric orthopaedics knowledge. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III-database study.