Publication trends of research on COVID-19 and host immune response: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

IntroductionAs the first bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 and immune responses, this study will provide a comprehensive overview of the latest research advances. We attempt to summarize the scientific productivity and cooperation across countries and institutions using the bibliometric methodology. Meanwhile, using clustering analysis of keywords, we revealed the evolution of research hotspots and predicted future research focuses, thereby providing valuable information for the follow-up studies.MethodsWe selected publications on COVID-19 and immune response using our pre-designed search strategy. Web of Science was applied to screen the eligible publications for subsequent bibliometric analyses. GraphPad Prism 8.0, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace were applied to analyze the research trends and compared the contributions of countries, authors, institutions, and journals to the global publications in this field.ResultsWe identified 2,200 publications on COVID-19 and immune response published between December 1, 2019, and April 25, 2022, with a total of 3,154 citations. The United States (611), China (353), and Germany (209) ranked the top three in terms of the number of publications, accounting for 53.3% of the total articles. Among the top 15 institutions publishing articles in this area, four were from France, four were from the United States, and three were from China. The journal Frontiers in Immunology published the most articles (178) related to COVID-19 and immune response. Alessandro Sette (31 publications) from the United States were the most productive and influential scholar in this field, whose publications with the most citation frequency (3,633). Furthermore, the development and evaluation of vaccines might become a hotspot in relevant scope.ConclusionsThe United States makes the most indispensable contribution in this field in terms of publication numbers, total citations, and H-index. Although publications from China also take the lead regarding quality and quantity, their international cooperation and preclinical research need to be further strengthened. Regarding the citation frequency and the total number of published articles, the latest research progress might be tracked in the top-ranking journals in this field. By analyzing the chronological order of the appearance of retrieved keywords, we speculated that vaccine-related research might be the novel focus in this field.

The top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine: a bibliometric analysis

“…The USA, England, and China ranked the top three countries/regions in accordance with the number of publications, which meant that these three countries/regions represented the highest level in COVID-19 vaccine research worldwide. Among that, more than half of the articles (56%) had participation from American scholars, because basic research conditions in the USA are superior to other countries, with advanced laboratory equipment, adequate funding for scientific research, and first-class research teams [ 18 ]. Although China ranked third in the number of publications, the centrality value was zero (Table 2 ), indicating that China should strengthen international cooperation and carry out more in-depth research on COVID-19 vaccine research.…”

“…Web of Science (WOS) represents a comprehensive, multidisciplinary database, which contains more than 12,000 authoritative and high-impact academic journals [ 17 ].What is more, it can provide critical information of all publications, including authors, authors’ affiliated institution, keywords, the number of citations, and publishers, etc. With its powerful functions and citation reports, it can quickly target highly impactful and representative researches, thus track down the research interests concerned to domestic and international authorities, as well as capture the growing trends of the discipline [ 18 ]. Hence, WOS database has been used extensively in bibliometric analysis [ 4 , 19 , 20 ].…”

Hotspots and Frontiers of Host Immune Response in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis: A Bibliometric and Scientific Visual Research from 2000 to 2022

“…Consultation with the literature on IPF revealed that several revisions of the diagnostic criteria and treatment principles of IPF were jointly published by scholars from the United States and Europe [ 15 , 32 , 35 ], indicating that the United States and Europe have given more attention to this field compared with other countries. Moreover, the United States has a considerable advantage in immune research, which is supported by the number of articles and is likely related to comprehensive national strength, professional researchers, sufficient research funds, and extensive international cooperation [ 23 , 29 , 30 ]. Thus, the United States is at the leading level in this field due to several advantages.…”

“…Bibliometrics is also used to evaluate the research contributions and collaborative relationships in a specific area across countries, institutions, journals, scholars, and articles [25], which can guide scholars to choose appropriate journals to publish their research results by analyzing citations and publication patterns [26][27][28]. More importantly, bibliometrics can also be used as a scientific basis for developing and implementing disease treatment guidelines [29].…”

Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research Landscape and Hotspots on Dysmenorrhea: Where are We Now?

“…The bibliometric analysis provides an excellent solution to systematically and quantitatively analyze large-scale publications, presenting the development history and scientific status. 18 It has been employed in various primary care and public health fields, including COVID-19, 19 chronic postsurgical pain, 20 rheumatoid arthritis, 21 and central sensitization. 22 Whereas bibliometric analysis in the field of dysmenorrhea is scarce.…”