Understanding the trends of tribal research in India through bibliometric analysis

Tribes are the most vulnerable, particularly in healthcare. Health research in a population helps to understand the trends of various diseases and other social determinants causing them. Our study aims to perform a bibliometric analysis of Tribal research in India from its status quo.

Research articles on tribal health were retrieved from Scopus and analyzed using MS Office, VOS viewer, and Word Cloud generator from January 2000 to December 2020. The number of research publications published each year, the clustering pattern of contributing authors, the most popular journals, the leading publication, document type, domain research areas, and commonly used keywords were all considered in the study.

As a result of the search, 1249 research publications were found. According to our selection criteria, only 395 research papers were included in the analysis. Approximately 43 research publications were published in 2020, but only three articles were published in 2000. Almost 35.7% of articles were published in traditional medicine, and 15.7% and 14.7% of articles were published in nutrition and infectious diseases. Less than 1% of articles were published in Health Policy, and 1.5% were published in Health Systems.

The study results showed that the research on tribes has now been improving in the following years. Research into tribal mental health and health care systems should be encouraged. Collaboration and funding may assist academic institutions in raising awareness of health issues in these populations.