A Global Bibliometric Analysis of Services for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS: Implications for Impact Mitigation Programs (GAP RESEARCH)
Bach Xuan Tran 1, Kalpana I. Nathan 2, Hai Q. Pham 3, Brian J. Hall 4, Giang T. Vu 5, Linh G. Vu 5, Hai Thanh-Phan 6, Carl A. Latkin 7, Cyrus S.H. Ho 8, Roger C.M. Ho
1 Department of Health Economics, Institute for Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam; Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland, US; 2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University. Stanford, California, USA; 3 Department of Health Technology Assessment, Institute for Global Health Innovations, Duy Tan University. Da Nang, Vietnam; 4 Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Global and Community Mental Health Research Group, University of Macau. Macao, People Republic of China; 5 Center of Excellence in Evidence-based Medicine, Nguyen Tat Thanh University. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; 6 Institute for Global Health Innovations, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam; 7 Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland, USA; 8 Department of Psychological Medicine, National University Hospital. Singapore, Singapore
*Correspondence: Bach Xuan Tran, Email not available
Abstract
Tremendous progress has been made over the past three decades in the fight against the HIV epidemic; however, children experienced substantial physical and psychosocial effects of HIV infection. To inform services and policy development, we analyzed research growth and current trends in studies on children with HIV/AIDS. A total of 17,598 research papers and reviews in English, which were published on Web of Science, were downloaded. VOSviewer was used to generate an author keyword cooccurrence network and a network illustrating the connection among countries by shared coauthorships. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to identify research domains emerging from the abstracts’ contents. The number of papers and their impacts had grown significantly in the past decade. The majority of study settings were in African countries. Research topics related to HIV in children were robust in areas of prevention of mother-to-child transmission and HIV and comorbidities treatments. Although psychosocial and behavioral disorders were recognized in previous studies, the number of interventions in these fields is still limited or not sustained. This study presents the global research trends and interests, points out research gaps of available publications and suggests several implications for services and intervention programs for children infected with HIV/AIDS. While preventions of mother-to-child transmission have been extensively studied, more efforts should be made to fulfill the lack of research on young people who are at risk of being infected or who are already infected with HIV. System thinking approach is needed in the design and implementation of future studies.
