The 2021 journal impact factors have been released, with covid-related research driving an increase in citations and impact factors across the board.
The 2021 journal impact factors have been released, with Lancet Rheumatology ranked first among 34 rheumatology journals with an impact factor of 35.482.
This represents a massive leap from last year, when the journal was ranked fourth with an impact factor of 8.136.
The number 2-ranked journal (and last year’s number 1), Nature Reviews Rheumatology, saw its impact factor climb from 20.543 to 32.286. Rounding out the top 3 was Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, with an impact factor of 27.973, up from 19.103 last year.
This year’s top ranked journal for general and internal medicine is The Lancet, with an impact factor of 202.731. The Lancet displaced the New England Journal of Medicine, which has been the top-ranked title in that category since the first release of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 45 years ago.
The huge number of published papers related to covid has contributed to an increase in journal impact factor across the board. The Lancet published three of the 10 articles with the highest citation count in 2021, and all three related to covid. Seven journals – including The Lancet and the NEJM – had an impact factor of more than 100 for the first time and all published a large amount of covid-related research.
Of the 25 most-cited Lancet Rheumatology papers published since 2019, 20 related to covid.
Top 20 Rheumatology Journals
| Journal name | 2021 JIF |
| Lancet Rheumatology | 35.482 |
| Nature Reviews Rheumatology | 32.286 |
| Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases | 27.973 |
| Arthritis & Rheumatology | 15.483 |
| Osteoarthritis and Cartilage | 7.507 |
| Rheumatology | 7.046 |
| RMD Open | 5.806 |
| Arthritis Research & Therapy | 5.606 |
| Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism | 5.431 |
| Journal of Rheumatology | 5.346 |
| Joint Bone Spine | 5.263 |
| Arthritis Care & Research | 5.178 |
| Best Practice & Research in Clinical Rheumatology | 4.991 |
| Current Opinion in Rheumatology | 4.941 |
| Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology | 4.862 |
| Lupus Science & Medicine | 4.687 |
| Current Rheumatology Reports | 4.686 |
| Rheumatology and Therapy | 4.081 |
| JCR Journal of Clinical Rheumatology | 3.902 |
| Clinical Rheumatology | 3.650 |
.
