Social network and HIV/AIDS: A bibliometric analysis of global literature

• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1015023
• Publication Date: 2022-11-02T05:56:58Z
• Authors: Linh Phuong Doan; Long Hoang Nguyen; Pascal Auquier; Laurent Boyer; Guillaume Fond; Hien Thu Nguyen; Carl A. Latkin; Giang Thu Vu; Brian J. Hall; Cyrus S. H. Ho; Roger C. M. Ho
• Keywords: Databases, Factual; Epidemiology; Social Stigma; Health Professions; Latent Dirichlet allocation; HIV Infections; HIV Epidemiology; FOS: Health sciences; Social Networking; 0302 clinical medicine; Topic model; Sociology; Psychological intervention; Stigma (botany); 10. No inequality; Social network; Psychiatry; bibliometric; 1. No poverty; Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); Topic modeling; FOS: Sociology; 3. Good health; Infectious Diseases; Environmental health; General Health Professions; Medicine; social network; Public Health; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Family medicine; topic modeling; 610; HIV Transmission; Bibliometric; 03 medical and health sciences; Health Sciences; Humans; Latent Dirichlet Allocation; Global Epidemiology of HIV and Drug Use; Demography; Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS Infection; Natural language processing; HIV; Computer science; Bibliometrics; Adolescent Sexual Health and Behavior Patterns

Social networks (SN) shape HIV risk behaviors and transmission. This study was performed to quantify research development, patterns, and trends in the use of SN in the field of HIV/AIDS, and used Global publications extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Networks of countries, research disciplines, and most frequently used terms were visualized. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation method was used for topic modeling. A linear regression model was utilized to identify the trend of research development. During the period 1991–2019, in a total of 5,698 publications, topics with the highest volume of publications consisted of (1) mental disorders (16.1%); (2) HIV/sexually transmitted infections prevalence in key populations (9.9%); and (3) HIV-related stigma (9.3%). Discrepancies in the geographical distribution of publications were also observed. This study highlighted (1) the rapid growth of publications on a wide range of topics regarding SN in the field of HIV/AIDS, and (2) the importance of SN in HIV prevention, treatment, and care. The findings of this study suggest the need for interventions using SN and the improvement of research capacityviaregional collaborations to reduce the HIV burden in low- and middle-income countries.