[Updated 28 Dec, 2022]

The scientific impact scholar maven John Ioannidis and his team from Stanford University have recently published an update (Ioannidis, John P.A. (2022), “September 2022 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators””, Mendeley Data, V5, doi: 10.17632/btchxktzyw.5)  of their 2019 massive ranking of the world’s most-cited authors across all scientific fields.

In their 2019 paper , the Ioannidis group used Scopus to analyse the output and citations of authors in 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields. They looked at citation data during the years Jan 1996-Dec 31 2017 for 6,880,389 authors, being the number who had published at least 5 papers. They presented rankings for the top 100,000 authors (in fact 105,026 were listed), some 1.45% of all who had published 5 or more papers across their career. For the 2019 paper, two searchable supplementary excel tables can be downloaded, one for all 22 years (“lifetime” citations) and the other for citations in the single year of 2017.

The 2022 update

The 2022 update includes the same tables updated with citation data contained from Scopus as at September 1, 2022 (and therefore cited in the 26 years 1998-Sept 2022) for 22 fields and 174 subfields. This time there are 194,983 authors listed in the top 2% of all who had published 5 or more papers across all these research fields. That number would therefore be some 9,749,150 authors (with 5 or more papers)

They ranked authors across all scientific fields “based on their ranking of a composite indicator that considers six citation metrics (total citations; Hirsch h-index; co-authorship adjusted Schreiberhm-index; number of citations to papers as single author; number of citations to papers as single or first author; and number of citations to papers as single, first, or last author). They refer to this as the composite or c-score which “focuses on impact (citations) rather than productivity (number of publications) and it also incorporates information on co-authorship and author positions (single, first, last author).”

As I did in this earlier blog published in Nov 2020, using the Ioannidis c-score I have constructed a provisional list of the top 100 ranked authors who have made substantial lifetime research contributions in the tobacco control field.

Most of these publish almost exclusively in the tobacco field, while others publish more widely, beyond their research in tobacco control. Those  who have published extensively on topics other than tobacco control are shown in italics in the table below. The number after each name shows their ranking based on their c-score. The bracketed figure shows show the percentage change in their c-score ranking between the 2019 and 2022 rankings

There is not a tobacco control research sub-field in the Ioannidis data. I therefore had to manually look up individuals’ c-scores. I started by looking up all those who appeared in my 2020 list. I then used published lists of reviewers for Tobacco Control and other names in my contact lists to I look up the rankings of another 55 authors I thought might have scores high enough to get into the top 100. Many highly productive and influential authors I looked for were not shown in the 194,983 highest ranked authors. Many of these are younger people who are very likely to appear in the list as those with declining citations fall out of it.

If you believe there are authors who should be in this list but are not, please contact me (or better, look them up in the tables here and let me know their scores).

Several things stand out for me in the names that appear below:

• the huge male dominance (23% are women)
• an even greater dominance of anglophone authors 90% (USA 65,  UK 13,  Australia  7, New Zealand 3, Canada 2)
• most of those on the list are older authors, reflecting their aggregated outputs across the 26 years of citation data
• 37 authors increased their c-scores, with far more reducing theirs

RESEARCHERS IN TOBACCO CONTROL WITH  THE 100 HIGHEST LIFETIME C-SCORES

1. Neal Benowitz (USA) 344 (+3)
2. Richard Peto (UK) 443 (-41)
3. Carlo La Vecchia (Ita) 499 (-12)
4. Michael Thun (USA) 673 (-69)
5. Richard Doll* (UK) 929 (-4)
6. Stephen Hecht (USA) 1044 (-27)
7. Jon Samet (USA) 1320 (+17)
8. Jim Prochaska (USA) 1735 (-40)
9. Saul Shiffman (USA) 1767 (+0.4)
10. Wayne Hall (Aus) 1885 (-5)
11. John Hughes (USA) 1886 (+29)
12. Robert West (UK) 2858 (+31)
13. Susan Michie (UK) 3685 (+35)
14. Wayne Velicer* (USA) 4617 (+22)
15. Stan Glantz (USA) 6050 (-0.8)
16. Ernst Wynder* (USA) 7140 (-24)
17. James Pankow (USA) 7228 (-17)
18. Ross Brownson (USA) 7378 (+10)
19. John Pierce (USA) 8423 (-20)
20. Michael Fiore (USA) 8691 (-32)
21. Karl Fagerstrom (Sweden) 9234 (+71)
22. Carlo DiClemente (USA) 9510 (-0.4)
23. Judith Ockene (USA) 9700 (-45)
24. Srinath Reddy (Ind) 9948 (+36)
25. Meredith Minkler (USA) 10523 (+40)
26. Lisa Bero (USA) 10971 (+4)
27. Jean-Francois Etter (Swi) 12316 (+6)
28. Nancy Rigotti (USA) 12397 (-8)
29. Marina Picciotto (USA) 12414 (-17)
30. Marcus Munafò (UK) 13212
31. Robert Beaglehole (NZ) 13484 (-22)
32. Ray Niaura (USA) 15820 (-15)
33. John Britton (UK) 16,181 (-23)
34. Frank Chaloupka (USA) 16292 (+14)
35. David Hammond (Can) 16365 (+41)
36. Ruth Bonita (NZ) 16452 (-16)
37. Ron Borland (Aus) 16754 (+5)
38. Gil Botvin (USA) 16777 (-31)
39. Simon Chapman (Aus) 16808 (-6)
40. Steve Tiffany (USA) 16952 (-33)
41. David Abrams (USA) 16953 (-13)
42. Caryn Lerman (USA) 17411 (-89)
43. Martin Jarvis (UK) 17828 (-19)
44. Cheryl Perry (USA) 17657 (-18)
45. Ken Warner (USA) 19439 (-10)
46. Tony Biglan (USA) 19472 (-0.01)
47. Jodi Prochaska (USA) 20431 (+26)
48. Mike Cummings (USA) 21501 (-2)
49. Jennifer Unger (USA) 21881 (+16)
50. Steve Sussman (USA) 22062 (+5)
51. Rob Sanson-Fisher (Aus) 23960 (-7)
52. Gary Giovino (USA) 23923 (-21)
53. Sue Curry (USA) 24700 (+2)
54. Emily Banks (Aus) 25853 (+54)
55. Konrad Jamrozik* (Aus) 24748 (-19)
56. Wasim Maziak (USA) 27248 (+18)
57. Robin Mermelstein (USA) 27503 (+1)
58. Prahbat Jha (Can) 27508 (+22)
59. Prakash Gupta (Ind) 28230 (-18)
60. Lynn Kozlowski (USA) 28533 (-0.5)
61. Riccardo Polosa (Ita) 29278 (+0.1)
62. TH Lam (HK) 30263 (+0.01)
63. Steve Schroeder (USA) 30931 (-32)
64. Mark Nichter (USA) 31011 (+8)
65. Tom Eissenberg (USA) 31707 (+11)
66. Hein de Vries (Nld) 33466 (-5)
67. Karen Emmons (USA) 33607 (-29)
68. Dorothy Hatsukami (USA) 33809 (-11)
69. Jack Henningfield (USA) 34723 (-147)
70. Tracy Orleans (USA) 34790 (-54)
71. Ovide Pomerleau (USA) 35955 (-48)
72. James Sargent (USA) 36325 (+17)
73. Paula Lantz (USA) 36387 (-10)
74. Mohammad Siahpush (USA) 36523 (+0.5)
75. Peter Hajek (UK) 37143 (+16)
76. Joe DiFranza (USA) 37246 (-20)
77. Michael Russell* (UK) 37437 (-38)
78. Ellen Gritz (USA) 38835 (-25)
79. Gary Swan (USA) 38847 (-61)
80. Tim Baker (USA) 38741 (-0.8)
81. Tim Lancaster (UK) 39068 (-2)
82. Ann McNeill (UK) 39099 (+5)
83. Robert Klesges (USA) 40562 (-44)
84. Derek Yach (USA) 41874 (+20)
85. Richard Hurt (USA) 43170 (-44)
86. David Balfour (UK) 44092 (-19)
87. Maxine Stitzer (USA) 44627 (-28)
88. Michael Siegel (USA) 46259 (-6)
89. Melanie Wakefield (Aus) 47231 (-11)
90. Tony Blakely (Aus) 47753 (+14)
91. Hu, Teh Wei* (USA) 47806 (-5)
92. Robert Jackler (USA) 49015 (-23)
93. Gerard Hastings (UK) 49682 (+16)
94. David Levy (USA) 50203 (+10)
95. Scott Tomar (USA) 52527 (-15)
96. William Corrigall (USA) 54676 (-48)
97. Paul Aveyard (UK) 55363 (+18)
98. Ruth Malone (USA) 58425 (-2)
99. Alastair Woodward (NZ) 60704 (+6)
100. Lois Biener (USA) 62227 (-25)

*= deceased