An inferential spatiotemporal approach for knowledge synthesis to identify trends in public health research

Decisions follow patterns that are introduced by human perception. Research and development (R&D) are influenced by these patterns. Furthermore, R&D publications can represent repetitive attempts to solve similar, or the same problems. Literature reviews serve as an important tool for identifying these trends, but they are time consuming. The time commitment of a literature review can be reduced by using a sample of research. This will allow an infinite population of research to be generalized. Additionally, spatiotemporal analysis is most appropriate for fields that follow time and geographic trends, such as public health. Also, using research locations to perform this analysis potentially captures the social return of R&D, as knowledge gained. As a result, an inferential spatiotemporal methodological framework is introduced to quickly identify research trends using public health research. This was applied to a childhood Pb exposure case study.

A body of more than 1000 childhood elevated blood lead (Pb) level (EBLL) research articles were used to extract publication years, research locations, and subtopics. These publications were grouped into research locations (i.e., U.S. states where research was conducted; not publication location) and averaged over years published (i.e., 29 years). Binary indicator variables were derived using the subtopics extracted and the periods identified in time trend analyses. Explanatory variables were used to conduct hypothesis testing. Significant variables were used to generalize the population of the annual average EBLL articles written per state.

The range of the annual average of EBLL research articles by state was 0-1.7 articles, with a mean of 0.3 articles. Thirty-eight explanatory variables suggested a significant effect on research article production. These included temporal, sociodemographic, education, structure age, environmental, and economic variables. The strongest effect on research production for U.S. states came from the number of structures built before 1950. A predictive model was selected to generalize the population of articles using time-periods 1990-95, environmental subtopic, and structures built before 1950. The locations with the most research production for this topic were California and New York. The locations with the least research production for this topic were Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Delaware, and New Hampshire.

If the trend for R&D is to make fast decisions, more human bias will be introduced into the decision-making process. Analytical tools that enable researchers to identify trends and ask more questions about their field will mitigate these biases. This hypothesis testing and predictive modeling methodology provide researchers and other decision makers with analytical tools they can use to quickly identify research trends and narrow their field of research. Additionally, this analysis potentially captures the impact of discovered ideas, as a social return spillover, for this topic.