Abstract. Domestic citation to papers from the same country and the greater citation impact of documents involving international collaboration are two phenomena that have been extensively studied and contrasted. Here, however, we show that it is not so much a national bias, but that papers have a greater impact on their immediate environments, an impact that is diluted as that environment grows. For this reason, the greatest biases are observed in countries with a limited production.

Abstract. Bibliometric techniques and social network analysis are used to define the patterns of international medical research in Latin America and the Caribbean based on information available in the Scopus database. The objective was to ascertain countries' capacity to establish intra- and extraregional scientific collaboration. The results show that increased output and citations in medical research have heightened the region's presence and participation in the international scientific arena.