This edition of the HILJ club has been prepared by Alan Fricker, NHS Knowledge and Library Hub Manager. @AlanFricker.bsky.social (Twitter RIP)
Paper for discussion
Mahnaz Samadbeik PhD, Peivand Bastani PhD, Farhad Fatehi MD PhD
Volume 40 (3) September 2023 Pages 307-318 https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12489 (Open Access)
Abstract
Background
Pandemics highlight the increasing role of information and communications technology for improving access to health care. This study aimed to present a bibliometric analysis of the concept of digital divide reported in the published articles concerning the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Methods
To conduct this bibliometric analysis of research topics and trends, we used VOSviewer software. We developed a search strategy to retrieve peer-reviewed publications related to ‘digital divide in the COVID-19 era’ from the Scopus database.
Results
In total, 241 publications on the topic of digital divide and COVID-19 were retrieved from Scopus database between 2020 and 2021. The analysis of keywords co-occurrence of research topics revealed four main clusters including: ‘telemedicine’, ‘Internet access and Internet use’, ‘e-learning’ and ‘epidemiology’. Seven characteristic categories were examined in these research topics, including: sociodemographic, economic, social, cultural, personal, material and motivational.
Conclusion
‘Telemedicine’ and ‘Internet access and Internet use’ as the largest clusters are connected to topics addressing inequalities in online health care access. Thus, policymakers should develop or modify policies in more egalitarian Internet access for all community members not only during a pandemic like the COVID-19 but also at regular times.
HILJClub reflections
I picked this paper because I wanted to get a better feel for bibliometric papers. I am also curious about the development of telemedicine and about aspects of the digital divide.
I was not very convinced by the search strategy – the authors only use Scopus (why? not clear) so have no access to subject headings. The keyword searches don’t seem to use any alternate spellings etc. I suspect the search is broad enough to do the job but would be interested in how they decided on the terms they used.
Various analyses are shared of country of publication (conclusion – geographic proximity is not a determinant factor for collaboration – hum) and around keywords. Keyword relationships are presented using a density visualization that doesn’t come out too well when you print it to read on the DLR. Online you can see patterns of terms that frequently occur together. I am not sure whether I am learning much from this. A further graph shows keyword co-occurence. Not readable in print and not adjustable online to allow you to focus in on an area – size of node is number of publications with a keyword and distance between them similarity. There are four clustered themes identified.
A discussion follows where possibilities are drawn out from these clusters and how they relate to Covid 19. The conclusions feel mostly self evident (internet access inequality is bad) – did this study help / tell us anything new?
I am left not much the wiser. I would be more interested in what the papers said rather than just the pattern of keyword use. Clearly I still have some way to go with developing my interest in bibliometrics based papers!
Potential questions
Am I missing something?
How can we better support 3 dimensional visualisations of data in an article?
Which bibliometric analysis article have you read that you found compelling?
How might you have completed a search to enable this article?
HILJ Club 