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. 2018 Mar 21;18(1):16.
doi: 10.1186/s12914-018-0155-5.

Bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed literature in transgender health (1900 - 2017)

Waleed M Sweileh  1
Affiliations

Bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed literature in transgender health (1900 - 2017)

Waleed M Sweileh. BMC Int Health Hum Rights. .

Abstract

Background: Transgender community is marginalized and under-researched. Analysis of peer-reviewed literature in transgender health is needed to better understand health needs and human rights of transgender people. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze global research activity in transgender health published in peer-reviewed journals.

Methods: Peer-reviewed documents in transgender health were retrieved using Scopus database. VOSviewer was used to map frequently encountered author keywords while ArcGIS 10.1 was used to map the geographical distribution of the retrieved documents. Most active countries, institutions, and authors were presented. The study period was set from 1900 to 2017.

Results: In total, 5772 peer-reviewed documents were obtained. English (5008; 86.8%) was the most frequently encountered language. A dramatic increase in the number of publications was seen in the last decade. The retrieved documents had an average of 12.1 citations per document and h-index of 92. Most frequently encountered author keywords were Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), mental health, and discrimination. Authors from 80 different countries contributed to publishing the retrieved documents. Publications originated mainly from Northern America, certain European countries, Australia, and Brazil. Professor Gooren, L.J.G. was the most active author in this field with 104 (1.88%) publications. Top active authors were in the fields of endocrinology, plastic surgery, psychiatry/psychology, public health, and sexology. Five of the top ten active authors were from the USA, three were from the Netherlands, and two were from Belgium. The most active institution was the VU University Medical Center (Netherlands) (184; 3.2%) followed by the University of California, San Francisco (USA) (157; 2.7%). The International Journal of Transgenderism was most active (284; 4.9%) in publishing articles in transgender health. However, documents published in the American Journal of Public Health had the highest impact with 53.5 citations per article.

Conclusion: There was a noticeable growth of research in transgender health in the last decade. Researchers from different world regions need to get involved in health and human rights research of transgender community.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Health; Human rights; Transgender.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Annual growth of publications in transgender health (1900–2017)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
a and b Network visualization map and overlay visualization of author keywords in transgender health (1900–2017). These figures were created using VOSvViewer program which is available for free download from the Leiden University [42, 43]
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Geographical distribution of peer-reviewed documents in transgender health (1900–2017). This map was created using a copy of ArcGIS 10.1 program [44] available at the Faculty of Engineering at An-Najah National University. The author has full access to the Engineering Laboratories and to ArcGIS program
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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