Identifying Research Trends and Gaps in the Context of COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world in different ways. Not only are people's lives and livelihoods affected, but the virus has also affected people's lifestyles. In the research sector, there have been significant changes, and new research is coming very strongly in the related fields of virology and epidemiology. Similar trends were observed after the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) episodes of 2003 and 2012, respectively. Analyzing 20 years of published scientific papers, this article points out the highlights of coronavirus-related research. Significant progress is observed in the past research related to virology, epidemiology, infectious diseases among others. However, in research linked to public health, its governance, technology, and risk communication there seem to be gap areas. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) global research road map has identified social science-related research as a priority area, more focus needs to be given in the upcoming days for multi, cross and trans-disciplinary research related to public health and disaster risk reduction.the health emergency and disaster risk management (H-EDRM) concept. We also see different governance-related decisions in East Asia which were effective in different stages of the pandemic [2]. Similarly, different innovative technologies have been used for pandemic response in different countries. A comprehensive review of the technology and its innovative use for serving different types of services during lock-down is yet to be done. People's behavior is one of the key aspects of pandemic response. Risk perception, understanding and communication are also linked to behavior change. New research would come out on the behavior as well as social changes during pandemics. There are also tremendous economic implications of the pandemic, which can be observed at global, regional, national and local levels. Some of the economic issues are also linked to the local social issues, especially for micro-, small-and medium-enterprises (MSMEs).Keeping this in mind, this paper makes a modest attempt to analyze past and current research trends related to coronavirus over a period of 20 years. Detailed analysis and discussions are provided from the papers published in last three months. The analysis shows some gaps and issues, which needs to be linked to the global research road map of WHO [4].

Risk Assessment on Continued Public Health Threats: Evidence from China’s Stock Market

“…Second, we also contribute to the literature on risk assessment on COVID-19 and provide evidence that continued increasing regional public health threats are an essential determinant of local firms’ share prices. This study answers Zhang and Shaw’s [ 1 ] call for multi-disciplinary research incorporating public health and socioeconomics. Our findings shed light on this observation and suggest that the provincial-level threats of public health play a substantial role in determining local firms’ market performance.…”

“…Zhang and Shaw [ 1 ] investigate the content of coronavirus-related research published in the journals indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index from 2000 to 2020. Furthermore, the textual analysis shows that coronavirus-related research mainly focuses on virology, immunology, epidemiology, and so forth.…”

“…The prior study shows that coronavirus-related research mainly focuses on virology, immunology, epidemiology, and so forth. However, there are few studies that discuss the risk assessment on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [ 1 ]. Understanding how investors engage in risk assessment on the COVID-19 outbreak is an essential issue because it related to the financial market performance and economic development.…”

Evaluating Trends in COVID-19 Research Activity in Early 2020: The Creation and Utilization of a Novel Open-Access Database

“…In addition, much of the current research focuses on themes and topics discussed in published papers. Zhang and Shaw [ 15 ] and Liu et al [ 16 ] identified that a large amount of research has been focused on virology, epidemiology, and immunology. Liu et al [ 16 ] also analyzed study-type trends and found that the majority of publications were opinion pieces, editorials, and news.…”

Design and Validation of the Adaptation to Change Questionnaire: New Realities in Times of COVID-19

“…The risk of this pandemic is not only a healthcare problem, but also has severe socioeconomic and psychological implications [ 4 ]. Therefore, the approach to the COVID-19 public healthcare emergency should try to minimize both the negative physical and psychological impacts of the virus [ 5 ].…”