Global Evolution of Research in Urban Environment and Human Health: A Bibliometric Study

Research on urban environments and human health has seen significant growth in the past few decades, as reflected in the number of documents published and the number of citations (Figure 2). Initially, between 1967 and 1999, the number of publications remained low, with only a few documents published yearly. Specifically, in 1967, there was just 1 document with 12 citations, and in 1970, there were two documents with 20 citations. The trend of low publication and citation numbers continued in the subsequent years, with the most notable year being 1999, which had 1 document and a remarkable 353 citations. This indicates that while publications were limited, the ones that were published had a significant impact at the time. From 2000 to 2009, the number of publications began to rise more steadily, with the number of documents increasing yearly. In 2000, there was 1 document with 451 citations, and by 2009, 6 documents were published, attracting 480 citations. This period marks the beginning of more focused research on urban health, as cities worldwide were undergoing rapid urbanization. The publications from this decade laid the groundwork for future studies, though citation numbers remained relatively modest, with six documents published in 2009 and 480 citations.