Bibliometric and visual analysis of Chinese-language scholarly journal papers published by China provincial centers for disease control and prevention from 2011 to 2020：based on CSCD data

BackgroundBy analyzing the publication of scientific and technological papers of the provincial centers for disease control and prevention (CDCs) in China, we can understand their scientific research strength, dominant disciplines, research hotspots, and talent development, which is conducive for further optimizing the scientific research construction of the disease control system.ObjectiveTo conduct a bibliometric analysis and draw a visual map of the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) sourced papers published by 31 provincial CDCs in China from 2011 to 2020, to understand the scientific research status of China's provincial CDC system in the past ten years.MethodsIn April 2021, China National Knowledge Infrastructure was used to retrieve CSCD sourced papers published by 31 provincial CDCs (excluding Taiwan Province, Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions) in China as the primary unit from 2011 to 2020, and finally 5231 CSCD papers were included. Bibliometric analysis indicators include number of CSCD papers published and financial support rate, proportion of CSCD papers to total Chinese papers, distribution of CSCD papers published in high-volume journals, and number of papers for a specific CDC that their first authors affiliated with. Citespace 5.8.R1 software was used to draw author's cooperation network map, keyword co-occurrence map, keyword clustering information table, and keyword emergence map.ResultsThe number of CSCD papers published every year showed a stationary trend, and the total funding rate was 61%, showing an year-by-year upward trend (increased from 49.3% in 2011 to 68.7% in 2020). Jiangsu Province, Fujian Province, and Beijing CDCs ranked the top three in the total number of CSCD papers contributed by a specific CDC. The Chinese Journal of Epidemiology, Chinese Journal of Public Health, Chinese Journal of Zoonoses, Chinese Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Chinese Journal of Endemic Diseases were the top five high-volume journals. The top three authors of CSCD papers (counted as co-authors) were Xu Bianli of Henan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (110 papers), Yan Yansheng of Fujian Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (72 papers), and Wang Quanyi of Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control (71 papers), and they studied the epidemiology of parasitic diseases and infectious diseases, the prevention and treatment of natural epidemic diseases and AIDS, and the epidemiology of infectious diseases, respectively. The keyword co-occurrence map showed that AIDS, zoonotic diseases, hand-foot-mouth disease, etc. (frequency ≥90) were the key research directions of provincial CDCs in the past ten years. The keyword clustering categories were closely related, although there were subtle differences, the topics focused on virus and chronic disease research. The keyword emergence results suggested that the frontiers of research had gradually shifted from infectious diseases such as enterovirus, hantavirus, and Zika virus to food-borne diseases and chronic non-communicable diseases such as tumors and senile diseases over time.ConclusionThe number of papers issued by the provincial CDCs in China in the past ten years has shown an overall steady and rising trend. The leading themes of researchers and institutions are infectious diseases, parasitic diseases, etc., while food-borne diseases and elderly diseases are the hot frontiers.