Eighty-one years of Research on Congenital Toxoplasmosis: A comprehensive Bibliometric Analyses

Bibliometric review of congenital toxoplasmosis research

Abstract

Background: Congenital toxoplasmosis poses significant health and socioeconomic challenges, necessitating effective research and control strategies.
Objective: The study evaluated global research output on congenital toxoplasmosis based on articles indexed in Scopus, assessed collaborations, and identified research gaps through co-authorship and author keyword co-occurrence data, with implications for research and improved disease control.
Methods: The review used the search term “congenital toxoplasmosis*” and “humans” to retrieve 1,382 research articles from Scopus (1942–June 2023). Co-authorship and author keywords co-occurrence analyses were performed on these articles based on author-affiliated countries that fulfilled the minimum thresholds of five documents, regardless of citations, and five keyword occurrences, respectively. The bibliometric maps were created using VOSviewer.
Results: The findings indicate that research output on the subject has increased steadily since 1966, with the most prolific authors and institutions based in France, the USA, and Brazil. Collaborative research networks were strongest among authors from the USA, France, the UK, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Sweden, and Brazil, with high total link strengths of 161, 137, 127, 103, 83, 73, 63, and 53, respectively. Frequently used keywords and their respective high occurrences and strong total link strengths included Toxoplasma gondii (209; 382),
congenital toxoplasmosis (251; 370), toxoplasmosis (172; 331), and pregnancy (75; 185). In contrast, terms such as abortion, microcephaly, prenatal diagnosis, risk factors, prevention, and knowledge appeared less frequently (5 – 33), with weak link strengths ranging from 6 to 87.
Conclusion: The findings highlight critical gaps in congenital toxoplasmosis research and emphasise the need for greater focus on risk factors, prevention, diagnosis, and stakeholder collaboration to enhance control efforts. Future research and policy should prioritise early detection strategies, maternal education, and preventive interventions to reduce the disease burden and improve neonatal outcomes.