Objective: Characterize the output of scientific literature in Latin America between 2000 and 2007 with respect to physical therapy/ kinesiology. Method: The authors conducted a retrospective study of 1,700 articles on physical therapy/kinesiology published in the SciELO and LILLACS databases. The variables studied were: document frequency, number of documents found, scientific output per country, scientific output for each describer with respect to physical therapy/kinesiology, number of authors, institutional affiliation, type of publication, language, type of study, and number of works listed in the bibliography. Results: The trend in scientific output per country shows Brazil leads in Latin America, with 70.1 % of the scientific output on physical therapy/kinesiology, followed by Chile with 13.4 %, Colombia