Assessing the authoritativeness of Canadian and American health documents: a comparative analysis using informetric methodologies

Government publications have long been considered authoritative sources of information regardless of the format (electronic via the WWW or paper) they are published in, and with little consideration as to how they are researched and written. Given the greater accessibility that the WWW provides the public to this very important source of information on a wide variety of subjects, assessing authoritativeness becomes a bigger and more difficult issue. The research and comparative analysis presented here continues a pilot study that applies informetric methods, especially citation analysis, to assess whether the blind trust afforded government publications is appropriate in such an important area of public policy and to see whether the two different types of health systems in Canada and the United States might have an effect on how these publications are produced.