Key trends in the development of global public health: 2021–2023

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to create a list of key thematic trends in the subject area “public health” that had taken shape by the end of 2023. Achieving the goal involved solving two tasks: a review of foreign publications devoted to the analysis of key topics in public health in 2021–2023; and the generation and analysis of a sample of the most cited publications in the internationalized public health segment over the same period.Materials and methods. The formation of a collection of foreign publications devoted to the analysis of trends in the subject area “public health” for the period 2021–2023 was carried out using the PubMed search engine and the query (“TREND*”) AND (“PUBLIC HEALTH”). 59 most relevant publications were selected for review. To create a collection of highly cited publications in the internationalized segment in the field of public health, recorded in research fronts based on the results of 2023, the Clarivate analytical resource – Essential Science Indicators (ESI) was used.Research results. Integration of the results of two stages of the study (expert assessments and the thematic landscape of a sample of the most cited publications in the field of public health) revealed a complete coincidence of 7 out of 10 trends in the development of public health at the present stage. The frontiers of the thematic area under study included the following thematic areas: the sustainability of national health systems (1), the increase in the number of mental disorders (2), the increase in the use of psychoactive substances (3), the impact of climate change on morbidity (4), the impact of environmental pollution on morbidity (5), healthy eating and food safety (6), aging population (7), sexual and reproductive health disorders (8), road traffic injuries (9), digital transformation of health (10), cancer (11), diseases of the cardiovascular system (12), an increase in infectious morbidity (13).