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Clinical Trial
. 2023 Oct;23(6):2287-2299.
doi: 10.1007/s10238-023-01046-9. Epub 2023 Mar 20.

The top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine: a bibliometric analysis

Weigang Wang  1   2 , Hu Wang  1   3 , Tian Yao  4 , Yandi Li  1   3 , Linzhu Yi  1   3 , Ying Gao  1   3 , Jia Lian  1   3 , Yongliang Feng  5   6 , Suping Wang  7   8
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

The top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine: a bibliometric analysis

Weigang Wang et al. Clin Exp Med. 2023 Oct.

Abstract

This study aimed to uncover the current major topics regarding COVID-19 vaccine, and systematically evaluate the development trends for future research. The top 100 most cited original articles on COVID-19 vaccine from January 2020 to October 2022 were identified from Web of Science Core Collection database. CiteSpace (v6.1.R3) was adopted for bibliometric analysis with statistical and visual analysis. The number of citations ranged from 206 to 5881, with a median of 349.5. The USA (n = 56), England (n = 33), and China (n = 16) ranked the top three countries/regions in terms of the number of publications. Harvard Medical School (centrality = 0.71), Boston Children's Hospital (centrality = 0.67), and Public Health England (centrality = 0.57) were the top three institutions leading the way on COVID-19 vaccine research. The New England of medicine journal dominated with 22 articles in the 32 high-quality journals. The three most frequent keywords were immunization (centrality = 0.25), influenza vaccination (centrality = 0.21), and coronavirus (centrality = 0.18). Cluster analysis of keywords showed that the top four categories were protection efficacy, vaccine hesitancy, spike protein, and second vaccine dose (Q value = 0.535, S value = 0.879). Cluster analysis of cited references showed that top eight largest categories were Cov-2 variant, clinical trial, large integrated health system, COV-2 rhesus macaque, mRNA vaccine, vaccination intent, phase II study, and Cov-2 omicron variant (Q value = 0.672, S value = 0.794). The research on COVID-19 vaccine is currently the hottest topic in academic community. At present, COVID-19 vaccines researches have focused on vaccine efficacy, vaccine hesitancy, and the efficacy of current vaccines on omicron variants. However, how to increase vaccine uptake, focus on mutations in the spike protein, evaluate of the efficacy of booster vaccine, and how effective new vaccines under pre- and clinical development against omicron will be spotlight in the future.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; COVID-19 vaccine; CiteSpace; Visualization.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Top 10 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Countries/regions of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Institutions of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Authors of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Keywords of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
The clustering of keywords of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine (Color figure online)
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Cited references of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
The clustering of cited reference of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine (Color figure online)
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Cited journals of top 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 vaccine
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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