COVID-19-Related Publications and Author-Level H-Index Change Among Highly Productive Peruvian Health Researchers: A Cross-Sectional Bibliometric Study Using OpenAlex

COVID-19-related research redistributed citations toward pandemic topics, but the author-level contribution of this redistribution to individual h-index values remains insufficiently documented in lower-volume national research systems. This cross-sectional bibliometric study used OpenAlex metadata from 2015–2025 to evaluate highly productive Peruvian health researchers. We assembled a non-random upper-productivity cohort of 500 authors; the primary cohort included 456 authors with fractional Peruvian affiliation of 0.5 or higher. Observed h-index values were compared with COVID-19-excluded h-index values recalculated after removing COVID-19-related works identified through an audited classifier. In the primary cohort, the median observed h-index was 12.0, the median COVID-19-excluded h-index was 11.0, and median Delta h was 0.00 [0.00, 1.25]. Overall, 210 authors (46.1%) had Delta h > 0; the observed total Delta h after COVID-19 removal was 450. A matched non-COVID removal benchmark produced a lower median simulated total Delta h of 297 [292, 303], and none of the 500 simulations reached the observed COVID-removal total. The proportional h-index change was larger among authors with lower baseline h-index, although this indicator is denominator-sensitive. COVID-19-related works had higher two-year citation velocity than non-COVID-19 works within the same authors. These findings support a cautious interpretation of h-index values from the pandemic period according to the thematic and temporal composition of the works contributing to the index.