Bibliometric Analysis of Electronic Cigarette Publications: 2003⁻2018

Area of Science:

• Public Health Policy
• Bibliometrics
• Tobacco Research

Background:

• Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are central to public health policy debates.
• Scientific publications are crucial for informing these debates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize publication trends of e-cigarette research over a 15-year period (2003-2018).
• To analyze the bibliometric data of e-cigarette publications.

Main Methods:

• Bibliometric analysis of Scopus database using keywords like "electronic cigarette", "vape", and "juul" (2003-2018).
• Analysis included Hirsch index, document types, institutions, journals, and countries.
• VOSviewer was used for authorship network visualization.
• Correlation with National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for tobacco research was examined.

Main Results:

• A total of 4490 e-cigarette publications were identified, with 62.8% being articles.
• The highest annual growth rate occurred in 2014, with a notable increase in 2018.
• The United States produced 51.6% of the publications.
• A strong correlation was observed between NIH funding for tobacco research and the volume of e-cigarette publications.

Conclusions:

• E-cigarette publications have increased significantly over the past decade.
• The close relationship between NIH funding and publication volume underscores the prominence of e-cigarettes in tobacco research.