Scientometric trends and knowledge maps of global health systems research

Background: In the last few decades, health systems research (HSR)
has garnered much attention with a rapid increase in the related
literature. This study aims to review and evaluate the global
progress in HSR and assess the current quantitative trends.
Methods: Based on data from the Web of Science database,
scientometric methods and knowledge visualization techniques were
applied to evaluate global scientific production and develop trends
of HSR from 1900 to 2012. Results: HSR has increased rapidly over
the past 20 years. Currently, there are 28,787 research articles
published in 3,674 journals that are listed in 140 Web of Science
subject categories. The research in this field has mainly focused
on public, environmental and occupational health (6,178, 21.46%),
health care sciences and services (5,840, 20.29%), and general and
internal medicine (3,783, 13.14%). The top 10 journals had
published 2,969 (10.31%) articles and received 5,229 local
citations and 40,271 global citations. The top 20 authors together
contributed 628 papers, which accounted for a 2.18% share in the
cumulative worldwide publications. The most productive author was
McKee, from the London School of Hygiene \& Tropical Medicine,
with 48 articles. In addition, USA and American institutions ranked
the first in health system research productivity, with high
citation times, followed by the UK and Canada. Conclusions: HSR is
an interdisciplinary area. Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development countries showed they are the leading nations in
HSR. Meanwhile, American and Canadian institutions and the World
Health Organization play a dominant role in the production,
collaboration, and citation of high quality articles. Moreover,
health policy and analysis research, health systems and sub-systems
research, healthcare and services research, health, epidemiology
and economics of communicable and non-communicable diseases,
primary care research, health economics and health costs, and
pharmacy of hospital have been identified as the mainstream topics
in HSR fields. These findings will provide evidence of the current
status and trends in HSR all over the world, as well as clues to
the impact of this popular topic; thus, helping scientific
researchers and policy makers understand the panorama of HSR and
predict the dynamic directions of research.