Exploring the Development History and Research Tendency of Medical Informatics: Based on Topic Evolution Analysis (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Medical informatics has become a discipline that attracted researchers worldwide. It’s necessary to understand the development of its research hotspots and the future research trend. OBJECTIVE This research aimed to explore the evolution of research topics in medical informatics by analyzing relevant research articles published from 1964 to 2020. METHODS We collected research articles from 27 representative medical informatics journals indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection. The research topics of medical informatics were extracted based on LDA model and the topic evolution patterns were analyzed based on similarities between research topics. RESULTS A total of 56466 publications were identified. We found that medical informatics was in a period of rapid development. Health data analysis and health behavior intervention were the research hotspots all the time. While in recent years, the application of emerging computer technologies and mobile health tools attracted more research interests. CONCLUSIONS Our study provided a comprehensive understanding of the research hotspots and the evolution pattern among them in medical informatics, which was helpful for researchers to grasp research trends and design their studies.