Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature

Introduction: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) represent a diverse group with special needs due to the unusual developmental experiences and social inequalities. This paper aims to explore and outline a future research direction in LGBT issues through tracing our historical understandi...

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Main Authors: David AN, Kavita BATRA
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Edizioni FS 2022-03-01
Series:Journal of Health and Social Sciences
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Online Access:https://journalhss.com/publications/2021_64-copy/
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author David AN
Kavita BATRA
author_facet David AN
Kavita BATRA
author_sort David AN
collection DOAJ
description Introduction: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) represent a diverse group with special needs due to the unusual developmental experiences and social inequalities. This paper aims to explore and outline a future research direction in LGBT issues through tracing our historical understanding of this population from an aspect of scientific research. Methods: LGBT-related peer-reviewed documents were retrieved from the PubMed database and the study period was set from the inception to 2021. Python-based methods were then performed to analyze the publication metadata and extract the most prominent research topics based on the abstract contents. Key points covered in the study were the development and trend of scientific effort and research themes in the LGBT topic, identified through the Bigram model and Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm. Results: A total of 21,221 publication records were retrieved from the PubMed database. Literature analyses demonstrated that scientific research in LGBT had grown gradually but began to gain momentum since 2010, evidencing increased attention to this demographic in the last decade. Regarding the region-wise scientific effort in LGBT, the United States (U.S.) was the most productive country (with > 45% of the total publications), followed by the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, Peru and Thailand, besides the U.S., Australia, and Canada, were the top countries that had relatively allocated more of their scientific efforts to LGBT research based on the calculated activity indices. Topics attracting the most attention in LGBT research over time were “male sexuality and risk", followed by "sexual development", "health care service", "social experience", and "intervention strategies". Discussion: This study provided a broad view of the developmental trends in LGBT research from invisibility to attention through a bibliometric lens and could serve as a data-based guideline for policymakers and social scientists.
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spelling doaj-art-cb006a49ec3b43d8915b0479a576a5f12025-01-18T18:20:30ZengEdizioni FSJournal of Health and Social Sciences2499-22402499-58862022-03-0171114131doi:10.19204/2022/TRND8Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literatureDavid AN0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3424-2740Kavita BATRA1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0722-0191Culver Academies, 1300 Academy Road, Culver, Indiana 46511, USA.UNLV Medicine Trauma and Critical Care, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2040 W Charleston Blvd, Las Vegas, Nevada 89102, USA. E-mail: kavita.batra@unlv.eduIntroduction: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) represent a diverse group with special needs due to the unusual developmental experiences and social inequalities. This paper aims to explore and outline a future research direction in LGBT issues through tracing our historical understanding of this population from an aspect of scientific research. Methods: LGBT-related peer-reviewed documents were retrieved from the PubMed database and the study period was set from the inception to 2021. Python-based methods were then performed to analyze the publication metadata and extract the most prominent research topics based on the abstract contents. Key points covered in the study were the development and trend of scientific effort and research themes in the LGBT topic, identified through the Bigram model and Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm. Results: A total of 21,221 publication records were retrieved from the PubMed database. Literature analyses demonstrated that scientific research in LGBT had grown gradually but began to gain momentum since 2010, evidencing increased attention to this demographic in the last decade. Regarding the region-wise scientific effort in LGBT, the United States (U.S.) was the most productive country (with > 45% of the total publications), followed by the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, Peru and Thailand, besides the U.S., Australia, and Canada, were the top countries that had relatively allocated more of their scientific efforts to LGBT research based on the calculated activity indices. Topics attracting the most attention in LGBT research over time were “male sexuality and risk", followed by "sexual development", "health care service", "social experience", and "intervention strategies". Discussion: This study provided a broad view of the developmental trends in LGBT research from invisibility to attention through a bibliometric lens and could serve as a data-based guideline for policymakers and social scientists.https://journalhss.com/publications/2021_64-copy/activity indexbibliometric analysislgbtresearchtopic modeling
spellingShingle David AN
Kavita BATRA
Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature
Journal of Health and Social Sciences
activity index
bibliometric analysis
lgbt
research
topic modeling
title Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature
title_full Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature
title_fullStr Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature
title_full_unstemmed Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature
title_short Trends in scientific output on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community research: A bibliometric analysis of the literature
title_sort trends in scientific output on the lesbian gay bisexual and transgender lgbt community research a bibliometric analysis of the literature
topic activity index
bibliometric analysis
lgbt
research
topic modeling
url https://journalhss.com/publications/2021_64-copy/
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