Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research Activity on Premature Mortality

Wan Shakira Rodzlan Hasani; Tengku Muhammad Hanis; Nor Asiah Muhamad; Md Asiful Islam; Chen Xin Wee; Kamarul Imran Musa

doi:10.3390/healthcare10101941

Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research Activity on Premature Mortality

Healthcare (Basel). 2022 Oct 3;10(10):1941. doi: 10.3390/healthcare10101941.

Authors

Wan Shakira Rodzlan Hasani^{1

2}, Tengku Muhammad Hanis¹, Nor Asiah Muhamad³, Md Asiful Islam^{4

5}, Chen Xin Wee⁶, Kamarul Imran Musa¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Community Medicine, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia.
² Institute for Public Health, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Setia Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia.
³ Sector for Evidence-Based Healthcare, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Setia Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia.
⁴ Department of Haematology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia.
⁵ WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Women's Health, Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
⁶ Department of Public Health Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Sungai Buloh Campus, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sungai Buloh 47000, Selangor, Malaysia.

Abstract

Premature mortality is defined as death that occurs before the average age of death for a particular population. Although premature mortality is a public health problem globally, the literature indicates no bibliometric studies that have made a holistic evaluation of the publications on this issue. This study aims to explore the characteristics of the publications on premature mortality in terms of the number of publications, citations, countries, collaboration, and the author's productivity and to further identify the trending keyword and relevant research topics. All the articles related to premature mortality data were retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) database using the search terms "premature death," "premature mortality," or "years of life loss." The retrieved articles were downloaded in a BibTeX format file. A Bibliometrix package from R software was used to perform bibliometric analyses. A total of 1060 original research articles and reviews have been published since 1971, with a total of 5499 contributing authors. The number of publications has increased substantially in the past decade. The annual percentage growth rate of publications is 5.08%. The United States is the leading country in this area of research with the highest number of publications (n = 280), the highest total citation (17,378), and the most activity in collaboration. Our thematic map suggests that the cluster for cardiovascular disease became the main research domain in this field, while the cluster for air pollution is an important topic for future research. Additionally, neurodegeneration is another cluster of research that should be developed further and connected with premature mortality. These bibliometric findings hopefully will help scholars better understand the global overview of premature mortality and provide information for potential collaborators, with the information promising attractive areas for future research.

Keywords: bibliometric; premature mortality; research productivity; thematic map; trending keywords.

Grants and funding

Probability of cardiovascular disease and assessing the predictive effect of job stress on CVD risk: a study among healthcare providers using the Framingham and Globorisk score (Universiti Sains Malaysia RUI Grant: 1001.PPSP.8012359).