This study analyses master dissertations and doctoral theses presented at public health graduation courses, from 1990 to 1994, in "Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz" (ENSP/Fiocruz), "Faculdade de Saúde Pública da Universidade de São Paulo" (FSP/USP) and "Instituto de Medicina Social da Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro" (IMS/UERJ). The aim was to point out some characteristics of their citations in order to contribute to stablish a Brazilian scientific productivity patterns in the field of public health. It was analysed a sample of 6.019 bibliographic references from 266 master dissertations and 84 doctoral these and the results showed that in general there were more references to scientific journal articles (46.7%); doctoral theses cited more books than master dissertations; there was a concentration of references made to publications between 6 to 10 years old; publications in Portuguese language were responsible for 49.3% of the citations; most of the articles cited were in English language; dissertations and theses from other institutions were more cited than those of the authors' school.
Master dissertations; Doctoral theses; Public health; Citation analysis; Scientific production
