Health research in the state of Odisha, India: A decadal bibliometric analysis (2011-2020).

Background: Bibliometric analyses are an important tool for evaluating health research outputs in terms of their distribution, trends, contributors, focus, and funding sources. The transition from millennium to sustainable development goals has led to a gradual shift in the health policy, and possibly, research priorities of low-income settings in the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states lagging in socioeconomic and health parameters, and also ranking low on innovations and research. In this study, we depict the recent trends, quantity, type, focus, and sources of health-related research in the EAG state of Odisha, India.

Methods: Peer-reviewed published original research articles related to human health published between 1 January, 2011 and 31 December, 2020 and where the study population was the residents of Odisha, or the study site was in Odisha, exclusively or partially, were analyzed. The publication characteristics were tabulated, including the title, journal name, open access, date of publication, number of authors, designation of the authors, number of institutes involved, and name of the institute of the first author. The details of the study setting, study site, ethical clearance, and funding source were also analyzed.

Results: The study identified 2,285 articles from database searches and included 666 articles after screening for bibliometric analysis. Most of the manuscripts had between three and six authors (43.5%). Two institutes from the state, the Regional Medical Research Center (ICMR-RMRC) and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), together contributed to 22.4% of the published manuscripts. Nearly 45.9% of the studies were community-based while 45.3% were hospital-based. While most of the published work was on infectious diseases, the proportion came down with time. An overwhelming majority of the studies were observational and less than 10% were experimental in design.

Conclusions: The analysis shows a substantial increase in the number of publications in this decade. Priority setting of healthcare problems, increased funding, and capacity-building can give a much-necessitated impetus to more quality- and evidence-based research for aiding policy implementation and improvement of the overall health.