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Review
. 2022 Jul 8;19(14):8342.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19148342.

Knowledge Domain and Emerging Trends of Social Vulnerability Research: A Bibliometric Analysis (1991-2021)

Hua Li  1 , Weijun Wang  2
Affiliations
Review

Knowledge Domain and Emerging Trends of Social Vulnerability Research: A Bibliometric Analysis (1991-2021)

Hua Li et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Carrying out social vulnerability research has become an important way to understand the sustainable development of resources, the environment, populations, and societies. Clarifying the research context and development trend of social vulnerability is of great significance to the follow-up theoretical research on and practical exploration of sustainable social development. With the help of a CiteSpace knowledge map analysis, this study reveals the research hotspots and their evolution in different periods and puts forward the key problems in and future direction of social vulnerability research in the future. This study found that the number of articles on social vulnerability research showed a steady upward trend and that the research experienced roughly three stages: an embryonic stage, a development stage, and a stable stage. The United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and China accounted for the majority of the research, but the intensity of cooperation between them is still weak. Vulnerability assessment and risk assessment in the context of policy and environmental change are hot topics in the current research. In the future, it is necessary to focus on the comprehensive research on the integrated and cross-scale research on social vulnerability, research on its occurrence and evolution, and on the dynamic monitoring as well as optimal regulation of social vulnerability under multiple pressures.

Keywords: CiteSpace; development trend; knowledge mapping; research hotspot; social vulnerability.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of publications on social vulnerability research from 1990 to 2021.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Co-occurrence visualization map of countries (left) and institutions (right) undertaking social vulnerability research.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Keyword co-occurrence network of social vulnerability research from 1990 to 2021.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Top 29 keywords with the strongest citation bursts from 1990 to 2021.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Co-citation timeline visualization of the 11 clusters.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. WEF The Global Risks Report 2022 [EB/OL] [(accessed on 11 January 2022)]. Available online: https://cn.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2022.
    1. IPCC . Climate Change 2014. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 2014. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

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