Shi Runfeng, Cao Huilin, He Meixin, Wang Yuyu, Zhu Yue, Wang Xinyu, You Caizhen, Liang Liming, Xia Xu
The First Clinical Medical College, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
BMJ Open. 2025 Jan 22;15(1):e094935. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-094935.
COVID-19, a public health emergency affecting the world in 2019, not only greatly promoted the development and application of vaccines but also effectively shortened the publishing time of scientific papers. In view of these facts, the current situation, status, problems and development trends of vaccine research and application were explored through bibliometric analysis of highly cited papers in the vaccine field within the time frame of 2014-2024, and the countries, institutions, authors, funding agencies and other relevant information that contributed most to vaccine research and application were summarised.
Bibliometric analysis through data analysis and visual mapping.
Scientific articles.
'Vaccine' and 'vaccines' were used in the WoS database to retrieve the publications and to adequately collect the data; Microsoft Excel was used for data analysis; and VOSviewer was used for visual description of data. Overall publication trends, countries, institutions and funding agencies, authors and articles, journals and languages, and research areas and co-occurrence keywords were analysed by bibliometrics.
A total of 3258 highly cited papers were published in the field of vaccines in the past decade, from 735 different journals. With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, the number of highly cited papers in the field of vaccine research increased significantly from 2020 to 2024, accounting for 76.12%. The number of highly cited papers for vaccines peaked in 2021 and 2022, followed by a rapid decline. Highly cited papers came from 7133 institutions in 153 countries, and the most influential country in the field of vaccines was the USA, which published 1733 highly cited papers, accounting for 53.19% of the highly cited papers. The top 15 institutions with the largest influence were all from the USA or UK with 2567 published papers in total, accounting for 78.79% of highly cited papers. 4787 funding agencies were recognised in funding 2368 highly cited papers. A total of 30 926 authors in 90 research areas contributed significantly to global vaccine research. The most highly cited paper was 'Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine' from the , which was cited 9435 times in total. Among the 9848 co-occurrence keywords, COVID-19 (including SARS-CoV-2, 2019-COVID and SARS2) was the most frequently co-occurrence keyword. It appeared in 1720 articles, accounting for 52.79%, indicating that COVID-19 was the most popular study in the last decade.
This study visualised the research and application of vaccines in the world from the perspective of papers output, drew the knowledge map and identified the important research hotspots and development trends in the vaccine field in the recent 10 years (2014-2024), which is helpful for Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, clinicians, researchers and health policymakers to better understand the research status and problems in vaccine research and application and predict its future development direction.
2019年影响全球的公共卫生紧急事件——新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19），不仅极大地推动了疫苗的研发与应用，还有效缩短了科学论文的发表时间。鉴于此，通过对2014—2024年时间范围内疫苗领域高被引论文进行文献计量分析，探究疫苗研究与应用的现状、地位、问题及发展趋势，并总结对疫苗研究与应用贡献最大的国家、机构、作者、资助机构等相关信息。
通过数据分析和可视化绘图进行文献计量分析。
科学文章。
在Web of Science（WoS）数据库中使用“Vaccine”和“vaccines”检索出版物并充分收集数据；使用Microsoft Excel进行数据分析；使用VOSviewer进行数据的可视化描述。通过文献计量学分析总体发表趋势、国家、机构和资助机构、作者和文章、期刊和语言，以及研究领域和共现关键词。
过去十年，疫苗领域共发表3258篇高被引论文，来自735种不同期刊。随着2019年COVID-19大流行，2020年至2024年疫苗研究领域高被引论文数量显著增加，占76.12%。疫苗高被引论文数量在2021年和2022年达到峰值，随后迅速下降。高被引论文来自153个国家的7133个机构，疫苗领域最具影响力的国家是美国，发表了1733篇高被引论文，占高被引论文总数的53.19%。影响力最大的前15个机构均来自美国或英国，共发表2567篇论文，占高被引论文总数的78.79%。4787个资助机构为2368篇高被引论文提供了资助。90个研究领域的30926位作者对全球疫苗研究做出了重大贡献。被引次数最多的论文是来自的《BNT162b2 mRNA新型冠状病毒肺炎疫苗的安全性和有效性》，共被引用9435次。在9848个共现关键词中，COVID-19（包括SARS-CoV-2、2019-COVID和SARS2）是最常出现的共现关键词。它出现在1720篇文章中，占52.79%，表明COVID-19是过去十年中最热门的研究。
本研究从论文产出角度直观呈现了全球疫苗的研究与应用情况，绘制了知识图谱，明确了近10年（2014—2024年）疫苗领域重要的研究热点及发展趋势，有助于疾病预防控制中心、临床医生、研究人员和卫生政策制定者更好地了解疫苗研究与应用的现状和问题，并预测其未来发展方向。
