Mapping the dengue scientific landscape worldwide: a bibliometric and network analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND Despite the current global trend of reduction in the morbidity and mortality of neglected diseases, dengue’s incidence has increased and occurrence areas have expanded. Dengue also persists as a scientific and technological challenge since there is no effective treatment, vaccine, vector control or public health intervention. Combining bibliometrics and social network analysis methods can support the mapping of dengue research and development (R&D) activities worldwide.OBJECTIVES The aim of this paper is to map the scientific scenario related to dengue research worldwide.METHODS We use scientific publication data from Web of Science Core Collection - articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) - and combine bibliometrics and social network analysis techniques to identify the most relevant journals, scientific references, research areas, countries and research organisations in the dengue scientific landscape. FINDINGSOur results show a significant increase of dengue publications over time; tropical medicine and virology as the most frequent research areas and biochemistry and molecular biology as the most central area in the network; USA and Brazil as the most productive countries; and Mahidol University and Fundação Oswaldo Cruz as the main research organisations and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention as the most central organisation in the collaboration network.MAIN CONCLUSIONS Our findings can be used to strengthen a global knowledge platform guiding policy, planning and funding decisions as well as to providing directions to researchers and institutions. So that, by offering to the scientific community, policy makers and public health practitioners a mapping of the dengue scientific landscape, this paper has aimed to contribute to upcoming debates, decision-making and planning on dengue R&D and public health strategies worldwide.

A Mapping Review on Urban Landscape Factors of Dengue Retrieved from Earth Observation Data, GIS Techniques, and Survey Questionnaires

“…We focused on urban areas, but rural areas could contribute at least as much to the dissemination of dengue fever as cities [56]. In a context of significant increase of dengue publications over time [57], our study highlights that specific research on spatial epidemiology, like dengue landscape factors, is not at the front line compared to virology, biochemistry or molecular biology research areas. Surprisingly, we did not find any articles which follow our inclusion criteria related to other Aedes-borne diseases, like Zika and Chikungunya when we swap dengue to one of them.…”

“…Five authors proposed a study considering the whole city (ids: 21, 41, 50, 64, 66) or very populated areas (id: 60). Various authors aggregated the data at the neighborhood level, considering dengue diffusion at fine scale linked with Aedes flight, or human density and proximity to Aedes presence (ids: 5,6,7,9,14,18,24,28,49,54,56,57,58,59,61,67,70,71,73,78). According to individual authors justifications, we interpreted the choice of a landscape factor, considered at a given geographical unit of analysis, by its link to one or several mechanisms involved in the dengue transmission process (Table 4): 1. ecological factors favorable to Aedes presence and development through direct entomological observations, or elements of the landscape favoring the presence of breeding-resting sites; 2. probabilities of human exposure to Aedes bites at household-level through small-scale proxies associated to the housing type or its characteristics; 3. probabilities of human-vector encounter considered at neighborhood, small and large administrative levels; 4. virus conservation and diffusion through human mobility.…”

“…This led the authors to propose various urban ecotypes, and to consider the residential, commercial, or social function of a construction, after taking into consideration transportation or ecological aspects like density of roads or vegetation. Despite the difficulty in comparing authors' self-definitions, the mix of residential and highly frequented areas, associated with multi-scale human mobility (e.g., road network density, ids: 14, 37), with vegetation in the surrounding areas generally show the strongest associations to dengue occurrences (ids: 10,14,19,28,35,37,51,57). Considered separately as individual proxies, urban functions are generally not significant (ids: 18, 35).…”

“…• "Land cover" is characterized by: "Land use" is thematically associated with "urban typology" and refers to the buildings function, e.g., residential, commercial, religious, industrial, or temporary construction (ids: 10,19,20,57). Some authors define a local spatial index associated with the degree of urbanization and infrastructure of the area, e.g.…”

Ten-years trend of dengue research in Indonesia and South-east Asian countries: a bibliometric analysis

“…This study used a bibliometric analysis using methods proposed by previous studies [6–8]. A bibliometric analysis is a statistical method to analyze literature to depict the development trends of knowledge and other information (such as citation information, authorship, and keyword co-occurrence).…”