Tracking trends of transgender health research online: are researchers and the public on the same page?

ABSTRACT

Altmetric Explorer was searched for the most popular online articles published in Pubmed-indexed journals. The 75 articles with the highest Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) were screened for article information (date, journal, access), authorship (number of authors, affiliation and origin of the corresponding author), and research (type, subject, funding). The reviewed articles displayed a mean AAS of 241.52, were broadcast 17.03 times by news agencies, posted on Twitter 101.47 times, downloaded by 67.21 Mendeley readers, and received 62.67 citations. There was intense online interest in the transgender health literature, mainly related to mental health and social well-being. Online visibility of transgender health articles was not significantly correlated with citation counts, implying that the public, likely including transgender persons and allies, may place emphasis on different health issues than scholars. Monitoring altmetrics and interactions on electronic media may help researchers conduct research that is more meaningful to transgender individuals, and to society in general.