Alzheimer’s Disease: The Intellectual Structure of Brazilian Research before and after the Implementation of the National Agenda for Health Research Priorities

Abstract

Introduction: Alzheimer’s Disease, the most common type of dementia, affects mainly the elderly population and will grow significantly in the coming decades. Objectives: To investigate Brazilian scientific research on Alzheimer’s Disease before and after the implementation of the National Agenda for Health Research Priorities. Methodology: A quantitative research study based on data from Brazilian scientific output on Alzheimer’s Disease collected from the Scopus database in 1974-2005 and 2006-2019. Scientometric methods were used, especially journal and author cocitation analysis. Results: The findings show a growth of original and review articles on Alzheimer’s Disease, published mainly in journals focused on health sciences and authored by researchers from institutions in the Southeast region. The analysis of co-citation journals revealed that Brazilian research on Alzheimer’s Disease, in the first period, was distributed on 72 titles focused on health sciences and, in the second period, 679 titles with broader field coverage. The co-citation authors initially revealed 93 authors co-cited in distant clusters and, in the second period, 1,000 authors co-cited in more connected clusters. Conclusion: Attention is drawn to the strong growth in the Brazilian production of Alzheimer’s Disease after the implementation of the Agenda, as well as to a change in the intellectual structure of research on Alzheimer’s Disease. It is supposed that the Agenda may have acted as a vital element not only for scientific production but also for the release of resources and the participation of researchers, both fundamental actors that would also explain the observed changes.