The multidisciplinary nature of COVID-19 research

Arencibia-Jorge, Ricardo, García-García, Lourdes, Galban-Rodriguez, Ernesto and Carrillo-Calvet, Humberto The multidisciplinary nature of COVID-19 research. Iberoamerican Journal of Science Measurement and Communication, 2020, vol. 1, n. 1. [Journal article (Unpaginated)]

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English abstract

Objective. We analyzed the scientific output after COVID-19 and contrasted it with studies published in the aftermath of seven epidemics/pandemics: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Influenza A virus H5N1 and Influenza A virus H1N1 human infections, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Ebola virus disease, Zika virus disease, and Dengue. Design/Methodology/Approach. We examined bibliometric measures for COVID-19 and the rest of the studied epidemics/pandemics. Data were extracted from Web of Science, using its journal classification scheme as a proxy to quantify the multidisciplinary coverage of scientific output. We proposed a novel Thematic Dispersion Index (TDI) for the analysis of pandemic early stages. Results/Discussion. The literature on the seven epidemics/pandemics before COVID-19 has shown explosive growth of the scientific production and continuous impact during the first three years following each emergence or re-emergence of the specific infectious disease. A subsequent decline was observed with the progressive control of each health emergency. We observed an unprecedented growth in COVID-19 scientific production. TDI measured for COVID-19 (29,4) in just six months, was higher than TDI of the rest (7,5 to 21) during the first three years after epidemic initiation. Conclusions. COVID-19 literature showed the broadest subject coverage, which is clearly a consequence of its social, economic, and political impact. The proposed indicator (TDI), allowed the study of multidisciplinarity, differentiating the thematic complexity of COVID-19 from the previous seven epidemics/pandemics. Originality/Value. The multidisciplinary nature and thematic complexity of COVID-19 research were successfully analyzed through a scientometric perspective.

Item type: Journal article (Unpaginated)
Keywords: COVID-19, multidisciplinarity, pandemic diseases, scientometrics, bibliometric indicators, scientific production, citation analysis, thematic dispersion index
Subjects: B. Information use and sociology of information > BB. Bibliometric methods
Depositing user: Unnamed user with email ijsmc@colnes.org
Date deposited: 11 Jan 2021 23:42
Last modified: 11 Jan 2021 23:42
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/40925

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