Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 25, 2021
Date Accepted: Jul 8, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Aug 4, 2021
The pandemic year 2020: A world map of Coronavirus research
ABSTRACT
Background:
SARS-COV-2 is one of the most threatening pandemics in human history. So far, it claimed about three million lives worldwide and the number is rising sharply. Governments, societies, and scientists are equally challenged under this burden.
Objective:
This study aimed to map global coronavirus research in 2020 according to various influencing factors to highlight incentives or necessities for further research.
Methods:
The application of established and advances bibliometric methods combined with the visualization technique of Density Equalizing Mapping provided a global picture of incentives and efforts on coronavirus research in 2020. Countries’ funding patterns and their epidemiological and socio-economic characteristics were included, as well as their publication performance data.
Results:
Research output exploded in 2020 with momentum, including citation and networking parameters. China and the U.S. were the countries with the highest publication performance. Globally, however, publication output correlated significantly with COVID-19 cases. Research funding has also increased immensely.
Conclusions:
Nonetheless, the abrupt decline in publication efforts following previous corona epidemics should demonstrate to global researchers that they should not lose interest even after containment, as the next epidemiological challenge is certain to come. Validated reporting worldwide and inclusion of low-income countries are additionally important for a successful future research strategy. Clinical Trial: n/a
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.