Scientific Mapping of Papers Related to Health Literacy Using Co-Word Analysis in Medline.

Background and Objective: It is necessary to study the emerging trends and areas of knowledge and to predict the direction of future research on the concept of health literacy in order to promote community health. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of mapping research knowledge in the field of health literacy and showing the structure of knowledge and their evolution over time. Materials and Methods: This scientometrics research was conducted using Co-word analysis technique includes the steps include: Data retrieval, Data analysis and Mapping and Visualization Papers from the MEDLINE database during (1970-2018) retrieved and analyzed. The bibliographic data analyzed using the visualization of similarities technique by text-mining and visualization techniques of VOSviewer. Results:A total of 7,429 documents, growth of scientific publications related to the field of health literacy has been increased rapidly over the past 10 years and continues to grow in recent years. The stronger studies were mainly conducted at research institutions of higher education in the Canada and United States. Four Core authors groups with a higher influence were identified. The keyword of “communication”, “depression”, “health education”, and “internet” had respectively the highest frequency. The results of cluster analysis identified and categorized them into three major clusters. Health literacy field had a close relationship with the lifestyle dimensions, health information technology, mental health literacy and chronic diseases. Conclusions: Given the interdisciplinary nature of health literacy the areas of education, health, Information Communication Technology (ICT) science, and mental health will help the cooperation of experts in these areas to enrich scientific research and make them more applicable.