Characterizing the Development of Research Landscapes in Substance Use and HIV/AIDS During 1990 to 2021

Tham Thi Nguyen; Hien Thu Nguyen; Huyen Phuc Do; Cyrus Sh Ho; Roger Cm Ho

doi:10.1177/11782218231177515

Characterizing the Development of Research Landscapes in Substance Use and HIV/AIDS During 1990 to 2021

Subst Abuse. 2023 Jun 5:17:11782218231177515. doi: 10.1177/11782218231177515. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tham Thi Nguyen^{1

2}, Hien Thu Nguyen^{1

2}, Huyen Phuc Do³, Cyrus Sh Ho⁴, Roger Cm Ho^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Global Health Innovations, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam.
² Faculty of Medicine, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam.
³ Institute of Health Economics and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam.
⁴ Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
⁵ Institute for Health Innovation and Technology (iHealthtech), National University of Singapore, Singapore.

Abstract

Mitigating the impacts of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and substance use requires comprehensive and systematic thinking in designing interventions and developing policies. This study describes the growth of research publications from 1991 to 2021 in the Web of Science database and points out current research landscapes in the fields of HIV/AIDS and substance use. Latent Dirichlet Allocation was used for classifying 21 359 papers into corresponding topics. The most common topics were HIV transmission, HIV infection, quality of life and mental health of substance users, and the biomedical effect of substance use. Emerging research landscapes include vulnerabilities of people who inject drugs to HIV transmission and related health problems. This study found a lack of research on health services, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral in combination with clinical evaluation and treatment services. Future investment and implementation of HIV/AIDS and substance use programs should focus on research of health services and clinical evaluation, especially context-specific interventions.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS; Scientometrics; content analysis; substance use; text mining.

Publication types

Review