The emergence of scholarly literature on physical/social distancing related to Coronavirus: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background The world is witnessing new public health crises due to the emergence of the novel coronavirus. This study aims to present a bibliometric analysis of research on coronavirus-related physical/social distancing. Design and Methods: In this study, a bibliometric analysis was applied to see the research productivity and its impact on coronavirus- related physical/social distancing. For this purpose, Scopus was used to retrieve the data for the analysis. A total of 2900 records was downloaded from the database for analysis. Results: The findings revealed that the top four authors published their research in the year 2020. The study ranked the British edical Journal (BMJ) at the top position on publishing the research on the topic. Similarly, the USA took the lead in all countries in producing research on the topic. The researchers preferred the document type ‘Article’ for sharing their research, and a single authorship pattern was dominated on all other patterns. Conclusions: Plenty of bibliometric studies are available on coronavirus, but not a single study is found on coronavirus-related physical/social distancing. This study will be valuable in identifying different bibliometric dimensions on the topic. Introduction Since December 2019, the world is witnessing new public health crises with the emergence and instant human-to-human transmission of novel coronavirus.1 The World Health Organization (WHO) was reported 29 pneumonia cases with unknown aetiology on December 31, 2020, in Wuhan city situated in Hubei province of China. The virus was recognized as a novel beta-coronavirus that is now officially declared as COVID-19 and the virus SARS-CoV-2.2 The spread of COVID-19 throughoutChina, neighboring countries, the USA, and Europe within a month gave a clear indication to the public health experts that the new virus was highly transmissible from one person to other. The Director-General of WHO declared the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as Public Health Emergency of International Concern.2,3.