Systematic analysis of the scientific literature on population surveillance

Abstract

Introduction Population surveillance provides data on the health status of the population through continuous scrutiny of different indicators. Identifying risk factors is essential for the quickly detecting and controlling of epidemic outbreaks and reducing the incidence of cross-infections and non-communicable diseases. The objective of the present study is to analyze research on population surveillance, identifying the main topics of interest for investigators in the area. Methodology We included documents indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection in the period from 2000 to 2019 and assigned with the generic Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) “population surveillance” or its related terms (“public health surveillance,” “sentinel surveillance” or “biosurveillance”). A co-occurrence analysis was undertaken to identify the document clusters comprising the main research topics. Scientific production, collaboration, and citation patterns in each of the clusters were characterized bibliometrically. We also analyzed research on coronaviruses, relating the results obtained to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results We included 39,184 documents, which reflected a steady growth in scientific output driven by papers on “Public, Environmental & Occupational Health” (21.62% of the documents) and “Infectious Diseases” (10.49%). Research activity was concentrated in North America (36.41%) and Europe (32.09%). The USA led research in the area (40.14% of documents). Ten topic clusters were identified, including “Disease Outbreaks,” which is closely related to two other clusters (“Genetics” and “Influenza”). Other clusters of note were “Cross Infections” as well as one that brought together general public health concepts and topics related to non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular and coronary diseases, mental diseases, diabetes, wound and injuries, stroke, and asthma). The rest of the clusters addressed “Neoplasms,” “HIV,” “Pregnancy,” “Substance Abuse/Obesity,” and “Tuberculosis.” Although research on coronavirus has focused on population surveillance only occasionally, some papers have analyzed and collated guidelines whose relevance to the dissemination and management of the COVID-19 pandemic has become obvious. Topics include tracing the spread of the virus, limiting mass gatherings that would facilitate its propagation, and the imposition of quarantines. There were important differences in the scientific production and citation of different clusters: the documents on mental illnesses, stroke, substance abuse/obesity, and cross-infections had much higher citations than the clusters on disease outbreaks, tuberculosis, and especially coronavirus, where these values are substantially lower. Conclusions The role of population surveillance should be strengthened, promoting research and the development of public health surveillance systems in countries whose contribution to the area is limited.

Research Trends and Collaboration Patterns on Polymyxin Resistance: A Bibliometric Analysis (2010–2019)

“…In the present study, the level of international collaboration (34.4%) was similar to population surveillance on tuberculosis (36.8%) or coronavirus (35.2%) (González-Alcaide et al, 2020) or high when compared to pneumonia (18.8%) (Ramos-Rincón et al, 2019), respiratory syncytial virus (13.3%) (Brüggmann et al, 2017) or Chagas cardiomyopathy (26%) (González-Alcaide et al, 2018). Although international collaboration is still not the most frequent type of collaboration, its importance is undeniable, making imperative the need for new strategies that facilitate its execution and implementation.…”

“…The fact that more Chinese students and academics are collaborating with researchers from Western developed countries also contributes to China's growth (Akanwa, 2015;Van Duin et al, 2018). As has been pointed out by other studies (Ramos-Rincón et al, 2019;González-Alcaide et al, 2020), China's emergence in scientific production is remarkable and has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years (Bornmann et al, 2015), including the area of pharmacology/pharmacy (Ding et al, 2013). Despite China's positioning, the United States still maintains the highest number of citations (8,713 citations), a common finding in several similar studies (Sweileh et al, 2016a;.…”

Public Health Surveillance Systems in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: Bibliometric Analysis of Scientific Literature

“…There was an exponential increase in publications on this topic in the EMR in the past decade, with a 2.6-fold increment in published papers in 2020 compared with 2011. This evolution of publications in the EMR mirrors the global trends of interest in health surveillance [ 30 ]. The peaks in the number of documents published in the 2013-2014 period and the years 2016 and 2020 might have been driven by certain disease outbreaks or the launch of pivotal surveillance networks in the region.…”

“…Instead, surveillance is embedded in medical or multidisciplinary journals, focusing on infectious diseases, immunology and microbiology, or medicine and public health in general. This is not specific to the EMR but is a phenomenon that is seen at the global level [ 30 ] and iterates how the current state of surveillance systems depends mostly on disease-specific approaches, limiting its generalizability and effectiveness as a multidisciplinary approach to public health [ 53 ].…”

Seeds on a parachute: the technology of greening

“…The shape of the flying platform was determined by us based on the analysis of the results of works devoted to the creation of large swarms of miniature wireless electronic devices [7,8] for environmental monitoring [9], population monitoring [10], registration of the presence of diseases in the crowd [11] and other applications requiring coverage of large areas. In addition, the results of works studying the scattering of seeds by wind [12], as well as modern methods of mechanical assembly of three-dimensional structures [13][14][15], were studied.…”