Global hotspots and trends on environmental exposure and cardiovascular disease from 1999 to 2022

The increasing risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with worsening environmental exposure is a critical health concern garnering global research attention.

To systematically assess the scope and characteristics of research on the relationship between environmental exposure and CVD.

A thorough examination of publications on the relationship between environmental exposure and CVD from 1999 to 2022 was carried out by extensively screening the literature using the Web of Science Core Collection. The language of the selected publications was standardized to English. Afterward, different academic tools such as CiteSpace, VOSviewer, HistCite, Python, Matplotlib, and Bibliometrix were utilized to examine the research trends in this field.

The study's findings indicated a steady increase in scientific publications among the 1640 analyzed documents, peaking in 2022 with 197 publications. The United States emerged as the leading nation regarding high-quality publications and international collaboration. Harvard University was identified as the most prolific institution. "Environmental research" was the most frequently contributing journal, and Muenzel T was recognized as the top contributor. Current research hotspots are primarily concentrated on themes such as "cardiovascular disease", "exposure", "risk", "mortality", and "air pollution".

This study highlights increasing research on the link between environmental exposure and CVD, identifying key exposures and diseases while emphasizing the need for further investigation into underlying mechanisms.