Bibliometric analysis of the top 100 cited articles on HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Background: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic remains a significant global health issue with currently around 38 million people living with the illness. In 2019, 1.7 million new infections were recorded and 33 million people had died of related causes globally. This study aims to examine and analyse the scientific research progress on HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) through a study of the 100 most cited articles during the years 2010 to 2020 by using bibliometric methods. Methods: A comprehensive retrospective bibliometric analysis was performed on HIV/AIDS literature published from 2010 until August 19th, 2020 and retrieved from Web of Science (WoS). We used the entry terms of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database to identify the top 100 cited articles. Results: The top-cited articles received a number of citations ranging from 338 to 4,396 times, with a mean of 633.56 citations per article. Out of the 100, a total of 77 papers were citation classic, cited more than 400 times. The most published documents in the set were reported in 2011 (n=22). The articles were published in 32 journals, out of which, 8 had 3 or more cited publications. The University of California, San Francisco was the top-ranking institution with a total citation score of 9,482 while the authors Burton DR and Mascola JR were the most prolific with 9 published articles each. The United States Department of Health Human Services financially contributed to 82% of the publications. Conclusions: This study analysis presents a recent prospect on the advancement of HIV/AIDS research worldwide that can be applied to enhance the understanding of HIV/AIDS research and support further work in this research field.