The Use of Figures in Epidemiological Publications: A Survey of Current Practice and Consequent Recommendations

Abstract

The aims of this survey are to document the current use of figures in epidemiological publications and to make proposals for future practice. To do this, the authors identified all 181 analytical epidemiology articles from 10 major medical journals in the period June to August 2008. For each article the number and type of figures were ascertained and each figure was studied for style and contents. The mean number of figures per article was 0.98. Eighty-four articles (46%) had no figures and most others had just one figure. The most common types of figures were plots of estimates, Kaplan–Meier plots, flow diagrams, smooth or model based curves and distributional plots. These 5 groups of plots accounted for 89% of the figures in the survey. For each of these 5 types of figures, examples of good practice were chosen and commented on. From this overview of current practice some general suggestions regarding the use of figures were given. Well-constructed figures greatly add value to the presentation of the study results. However, many authors choose not to include figures and there is room for improvement in the content and presentation of figures that are included.