Global trends in Alzheimer's and dementia research (2019-2024): A machine learning-based bibliometric analysis

BackgroundDementia, including Alzheimer's disease, represents one of the fastest-growing global health challenges. To coordinate research priorities, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Blueprint for Dementia Research in 2022. This framework outlines six research themes spanning disease mechanisms, diagnosis, treatment development, risk reduction, epidemiology and health economics, and care and support. However, empirical evidence assessing whether global research activity aligns with these priorities remains limited.ObjectiveTo analyse global trends in dementia and Alzheimer's disease research and examine how research output is distributed across the thematic priorities defined in the WHO Blueprint for Dementia Research.MethodsA total of 206,636 unique peer-reviewed primary care studies published between 2019 and 2024 were retrieved from databases on the EBSCOhost platform. A machine-learning-assisted natural language processing pipeline classified publications into the six WHO research themes. Temporal trends were assessed and differences in thematic distributions before and after publication of the WHO blueprint were evaluated.ResultsAnnual dementia research output increased from 27,248 publications in 2019 to 39,147 in 2024. Research activity was consistently dominated by studies on disease mechanisms and diagnosis. Risk reduction and drug development demonstrated the strongest growth. Research related to dementia care and support, epidemiology and health economics increased more slowly and declined following publication of the WHO blueprint.ConclusionsGlobal dementia research continues to expand but remains unevenly distributed across research priorities. While progress in biomedical discovery is substantial, comparatively limited growth in care-related research highlights the need for stronger investment in studies addressing implementation and real-world dementia care.