Infographic: global research trends in infectious disease

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Over the past two decades, infectious disease outbreaks have had a massive global impact: Ebola, Influenza A (H1N1), SARS, MERS, Zika virus and most recently COVID-19. Meanwhile, researchers worldwide have been working to advance our understanding of these epidemics and how to respond.

At Elsevier, our experts in data science and microbiology used SciVal and Scopus data from 1996 to 2018 to analyze scholarly output, trending topics and top research organizations in this field.

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Infectious disease research spikes following an outbreak

Following an outbreak of disease, we see a sharp spike in disease-specific publications, showcasing the research community’s ability to quickly respond to public health needs:

Growth in the field

Emerging infectious disease research has seen an average growth of 6.9 percent annually over the past two decades:

Leading research organizations

Among research aimed at understanding new outbreaks, a rise in publications specifically related to health security suggests an increased focus on public health preparedness. Governmental organizations lead the way in publishing this health security research:

Impact of outbreaks

The number of deaths from outbreaks recorded in the last two decades shows the impact of infectious disease:

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