key: cord-0076752-goh31z4o
authors: Ekundayo, Temitope C.; Orimoloye, Israel R.; Ololade, Olusola O.; Okoh, Anthony I.
title: Prioritization of health emergency research and disaster preparedness: a systematic assessment of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic
date: 2022-01-14
journal: Data Science for COVID-19
DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-323-90769-9.00033-5
sha: 1587ef2210ddc34d6374b1158bb072ac26ea5b31
doc_id: 76752
cord_uid: goh31z4o

The spontaneous nature of health emergencies and disasters (HED) require research prioritization and preparedness from multidisciplinary sectors such as the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that has become a center of attention to the research community globally. This study aims at assessing global research evolution, precedence, and preparedness toward combating the COVID-19 pandemic via systematic analysis of published studies. We retrieved COVID-19 studies from Scopus and Web of Science databases from January 01, 2020, to March 23, 2020, according to the PRISMA guidelines using the search term “COVID-19 OR coronavir∗”. The dataset was analyzed for productivity indices, conceptual frameworks (CFs), discipline, and collaboration networks (CNs). Results revealed a total of 817 studies on COVID-19. The top two productive researchers include those by Wang Y. (3.55%) and Li Y. (2.94%). Among disciplines, virology (n = 40, 5 h-index), microbiology (n = 27, 2 h-index), immunology (n = 22), and infectious diseases (n = 21) were at the forefront. China (n = 181) and the United States (n = 69) ranked the first and second productive nations, respectively. Country CNs in COVID-19 can be clustered into four subnetworks. Also, four thematic areas evolved in COVID-19 research for the period, namely, epidemiologic studies of infectious bronchitis virus including coronavirus, elucidation of historical respiratory viral outbreaks, zoonoses and phylogenetic analysis, and influenza zoonosis; while the prevailing CFs of research prioritization ranged from comparative symptomatology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), perceptivity studies from SARS-CoV-1,2 outbreaks, antigenic structural studies for vaccine production to antibody therapeutic target studies. In conclusion, the COVID-19 research has received progressive attention since the beginning of the pandemic; however, this study recommends that integrative and multidisciplinary research priority and preparation should be channelled toward HED from all experimental and nonexperimental biases of knowledge.

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak that suddenly spread from China to the other parts of the world has become a center of attention to the research world, scientists, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals. Large behavioral, health, and state measures were undertaken to alleviate the outbreak and prevent the virus from persisting in the human population in China and around the world. However, the efforts to mitigate or reduce the spatial distribution of the virus have become mirage. How these unprecedented interventions, including travel restrictions, had affected by COVID-19 spread in our world remains unclear and to be 1.1 Methods

We have an interest in information/research evolution and response to health emergency using COVID-19 as an ongoing global pandemic. For this purpose, we retrieved COVID-19-related documents from the Scopus database and the Web of Science (WoS) core collections from January 01, 2020, to March 23, 2020 (19:39:27 GMTþ2) according to the modified method of the "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)" [5] . No exclusion criteria were considered in order to map the various information and research response to COVID-19 pandemic from vast research landscapes. The databases searched were as follows: 

Data retrieved from the two databases were combined, de-duplicated, and normalized for bibliometric attributes such as authors' names, affiliations (institutions, country), article source, and keyword synonymic forms. The normalized data were analyzed for descriptive performance indices/rates in terms of documents, authors, productivity, journal source, institution, country, total citations, intellectual domain, and collaboration index. We mapped the most cited documents related to the COVID-19 pandemic and identified the conceptual framework through multidimensional scaling analysis of author-keywords co-occurrences [3] .

Collaboration networking during health emergencies is necessary for various reasons, for instance, to pool inadequate resources together to achieve desired results, for intellectual and knowledge sharing, and for technical know-how and skill transfer required to halt health emergencies such as outbreaks and pandemics. For this study, we assessed collaboration regarding efforts channelled toward combating ongoing COVID-19 pandemic from the author-, institution-, and country-wise. In all cases, the network has a simple bipartite vector form typical of authors  Articles, institutions  Articles, and countries  Articles. Mathematically, where Network is a symmetrical matrix (C ¼ C T ) and C is a bipartite network matrix. The edges/nodes of the network imply authors/institutions/countries and the associated curves the basis/means of collaboration among the nations. The network visual presentation was according to the Jaccard's similarity index normalized Fruchterman forcedirected layout [6] .

The open ware analytic platforms of R and python were employed in this study. Data analysis was done based on the integrated usage of the bibliometrix package in Rstudio v.3.6.2, ScientoPy package, and Excel 2016 [7, 8] .

This research systematically analyzed the distribution of the articles, stratified by geography, organization, journals, relevant sources, and more. This study also analyzed keyword frequency and then used bibliometric mapping methods to illustrate research trend and evolution on COVID-19. Results were examined to better clarify this field's structure and research hotspot and trends in COVID-19 study and the need for health emergency research and disaster preparedness prioritization. This study also provides information on most influential themes and keywords to develop elated themes of research on COVID- 19 More so, the discipline-based COVID-19 research and information is presented in Table 24 .4. Among all the disciplines evaluated, virology and microbiology ranked first and second with published research of about 40 (5 h-index) and 27 (2 h-index) articles, respectively. While immunology, infectious diseases, veterinary sciences, general and internal medicine, and pharmacology and pharmacy ranked third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh with about 22 (2 h-index), 21 (3 h-index), 15 (1 h-index), 14 (6 h-index), and 11 (1 h-index) articles, respectively. These are the most influential or the most productive fields in COVID-19-related studies between January and March 2020.

The contribution of various nations toward research aimed at this pandemic based on published articles is investigated in this study. The global distribution of scientific articles indirectly informed health emergency research tailored toward COVID-19 and may overlap with availability/advancement of analytical tools and the capacity of researchers from various nations in both developed and developing countries [9] . Among the top countries, China and the United States of America ranked first and second in the most productive countries, with a total of 181 and 69 published articles, accounting for about 22.15% and 8.45% of the total articles, respectively, published on COVID-19 within the Other information on most productive countries on COVID-19 are presented in Table 24 .5; readers may refer to the information in Table 24 .5. High research outputs from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Korea may be attributed to the fact that they are the most affected countries by this pandemic as well as the countries with funding available for research on COVID-19. Also, the world leaders and research scientists are looking for a solution for the pandemic, which might trigger the need for research on the pandemic [10, 11] . Chapter 24 Prioritization of health emergency 473

The information in Fig. 24 .2 presents country collaboration networks on COVID-19 research during the period of the survey. The function estimates and good-of-fit show that the output on COVID-19 research evolved in the past few months of its spread. In addition to the effects on human health, COVID-19 can wreak havoc on the global economy, which can linger with continuous adverse impact on the development and other global environments, which is likely accounting for the increased number of articles related to the research on COVID-19 and with a possible increase in the nearest future [12, 13] . The result from this study reveals that China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Italy ranked first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively, in terms of collaboration on COVID-19 research during the study period. Other countries including Japan, Sweden, Netherlands, Nigeria, Thailand, and South Africa are also identified for their collaboration studies on this pandemic between January and March 2020. This study also reveals that the top collaborative nations are the countries that this pandemic affected most, especially in the first 2 months when COVID-19 started, while few studies are from countries recently hit by the pandemic, including Croatia, Austria, Tanzania, Sudan, New Zealand, Russia, and Chile, among other nations.

Authors from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Korea ranked first, second, third, fourth and fifth with about 498, 71, 17, 14, and 9 citations, respectively (Table 24 .6). High research outputs and citations received by these nations are attributed to the fact that these regions of the world were seriously affected by the pandemic, especially in the area of disease monitoring and control as well as in searching for a way out of its spatial distribution and infection [14e16]. This might have also encouraged researchers in the area to focus on the cure for COVID-19, which might have influenced research on COVID-19, yielding more research output on the mode of transmission, the most vulnerable age groups, and other genetics-related uses around the pandemic, as well as mitigation with possibly more publications will emanate from this country on COVID-19-related issues [14, 16, 17] . The information in S 1 Table reveals characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study", "First case of 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States", "Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding", "A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern", and "The continuing 2019-nCoV epidemic threat of novel coronaviruses to global health-The latest 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China." Table 24 .7 presents the most influential and relevant sources of research on COVID-19 between January and March 2020. The result from the study reveals the top journals or sources with the most published research articles on COVID-19-related studies. These relevant sources cover a range of subjects in their respective articles. The Lancet and the Journal of Medical Virology ranked first and second with about 38 (4.65%) and 32 (3.92%) Table 24 .7. Fig. 24 .3 presents Lotka's model of scientific productivity on COVID-19 during the survey period. Lotka's model presents the frequency of authors' publications in a specified field. It shows authors making contributions in the field and the ratio of all contributors who make one contribution in the field with a significant percentage [18, 19] . The estimated value of n for the dataset is calculated using Lotka's model. The Beta value in COVID-19 is 2.44 for all author data, which provides the best fitting value for the dataset. Fig. 24.3 shows the log-transformed Lotka's model plot with a P-value, R 2 , Beta coefficient, and constant C of 0.02, 0.97, 2.44, and 0.58, respectively. P-value is the number of authors producing n papers and C is a constant characteristic of a particular subject area. Other statistics about the collaboration network in COVID-19 research and information is presented in S 2 . Basically, the network diameter 6 and 4 showed that the collaboration based on authors' coupling and country is typical of acquaintanceship.

The top author's coupling cluster is presented in Fig. 24 concepts and frameworks often related to COVID-19 could be detected via country collaboration ( Fig. 24. 2), conceptual framework (S 1 Figure) , and co-occurrence of terms and keywords (Fig. 24.4) . Bibliographic coupling exists when two publications coreference a third document in their contents. It indicates a probability that the two documents present a related subject matter. Two documents are scientometrically coupled when they cite one or more publications in common. This is an indicator that such an area of interest is very important and can be a research hotspot in the field, for instance, COVID-19. The information in Fig. 24 .5 presents co-occurring keywords, which reflect research on pressing and emerging issues facing the world, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. Research conducted between January and March 2020 was chosen for RStudio analysis with a time slice of months. From each slice, the top most-occurred or re-occurring items were picked. The nodes represent keywords, and each node's size correlates to the keywords' co-occurring frequency. The color of the lines between keywords reveals chronologic order: red, yellow, green, and pink. The maximum frequency was perceptivity studies from SARS-CoV outbreak and epidemic). While cluster #3 (antigenic structural studies for vaccine production) comprises of virus, antiviral, phylogenetic analysis, spike protein, and nucleocapsid protein and cluster #4 (antibody therapeutic target studies) consist of infectious bronchitis, neutralizing antibody, bat, ace 2, and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. Most nodes marked with blue circles represent a good relationship between keywords and its centrality, and these keywords are very important in COVID-19 research and its occurrences. In other words, these nodes represent emerging trends in the field of COVID-19, with the strongest bursts.

Institutional collaboration networks are evaluated in this study where the size of the circle represents the research efforts/outcomes in term of documents published by FIGURE 24 .5 Keywords co-occurrence networks in COVID-19 research and information from 01/01/2020, to 23/03/2020. different affiliations (Fig. 24.6 ). The link between two circles denotes the strength of bidirectional collaboration between them quantified via their coauthored documents. The sum of all links a circle possessed represents the overall strength of the collaborations the corresponding institution has made with other institutions [4] . Among the top collaborative institutions are the University of Toronto Chinese University of Hong Kong, Wuhan University of Virology, Fudan University, Peking University, and Guangzhou Medical University. Furthermore, studies have shown that in different university ranking systems, the number of citations has more than 20% share [20e22]. Therefore many institutions encourage their researchers to publish high-quality and influential research articles that reach the broadest possible audience or receive high citations [23] . Consequently, the published literature has revealed increased visibility through the availability of research outputs via open-access repositories, broader access outcomes, and higher citation effects [23e26]. The research visibility improved both the report and the researcher's citation and chronologically h-index.

The study identified four thematic evolutionary thrust areas in COVID-19 emergency research prioritization: the first cluster (bottom right: epidemiologic studies of infectious bronchitis virus including coronavirus) consists of coronavirus, infectious bronchitis virus, and epidemiology followed by the second cluster (top right: elucidation of historical respiratory viral outbreaks) that consists of MERS and SARS. More so, the third cluster (top left, namely, zoonoses and phylogenetic analysis) comprises zoonoses and phylogenetic analysis, and the fourth cluster (bottom left) consists of zoonosis and influenza (influenza zoonosis) (Fig. 24.7) . These domains of research have received progressively more attention in the past few months since the beginning of COVID-19. Thus to analyze the thematic evolution of this pandemic, Figs. 24.4 and 24.6 show several findings (prevailing themes) that sought to find solutions in an effort to halt the COVID-19 pandemic. Research related to COVID-19 contributes to scientific advancements and provides the needful information on the disease. 

This study offers a conceptual representation of COVID-19 research progression, and it has been noted that studies in this area have disciplinary and multidisciplinary emphasis (combining two or more fields) in which new knowledge is gained through interaction and incorporation of new ideas, views, tools, and techniques across different fields. More so, interdisciplinary work frequently involves institutions, organizations, scientists, and nations.

This study attempted to provide concise quantitative and qualitative overview of the world prioritization of health emergency research and preparedness using publications of COVID-19 between January and March 2020 as a model scenario. The results indicate that researchers from around the world started publishing the articles just immediately after the occurrence of COVID-19 and the number of articles in this field is still growing quickly. This new virus is a concern for the world, as it has affected various sectors globally, including global economy, health, migration, airlines, and other vital sectors since the inception of COVID-19 [26e29] . As reflected in the study, all the continents have been affected and almost all activities have been grounded [30, 31] .

The development of a multidisciplinary task force involving researchers, institutional leaders, infectious disease and infection prevention specialists, and technology experts is a critical step in addressing global concerns and developing open and productive communication on COVID-19. An initial needs-based assessment was done of the current state to determine the necessary operational processes for outbreak management, the existing informatics structure to support these processes, and the gaps that needed to be bridged in a timely fashion. Doing so allowed us to expediently assess studies on COVID-19 between January and March 2020. This study revealed that globally, China and the United States ranked first and second, respectively, in all the research productivity measures including production, citations, authors, and single-and multiplecountry authors of COVID-19 research during the study period. Other counties including Korea, Italy, Germany, Canada, and Saudi Arabia also ranked high in the research on COVID-19. This also reveals most of the nations are most affected especially in the first month of inception of the COVID-19, while other countries that are less affected have a low record of novel studies on this pandemic. However, the result from this study suggests the need for those countries lagging in research or scientific findings to put more effort into finding solutions before they get hit by the pandemic, especially nations from Africa.

As of March 31, 2020, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases globally is 784,392, with the number of recorded deaths of about 37,780 and recoveries of 167,035. Therefore prioritization of health emergency research and disaster preparedness for COVID-19 and its impact on global health and economy is paramount [14] . COVID-19 is affecting territories and 200 countries around the world and 2 international conveyances, i.e., Holland America's MS Zaandam cruise ship and the Diamond Princess cruise ship harbored in Yokohama, Japan [32] . Due to the obvious impact of COVID-19, various sectors have been grounded globally, lives have been lost, and businesses are collapsing, and nations under lockdown are disrupting activities in all spheres of life.

One of the ways for prioritizing health emergency and disaster preparedness for COVID-19 is to balance the need to concentrate on the pandemic while ensuring highquality healthcare and non-new infection-related operations and research on pandemic to provide support to all facets of the population and sectors [14, 16, 33] . Finally, in an evolving pandemic environment, face with challenges for developing guidelines or protocols that typically require inputs and approvals from multiple stakeholders with emerging research outcomes, it is unavoidable that proper dissemination of the guideline/protocols to sustain the rapid reduction of the spread and impact of health emergency such as COVID-19 will encounter many obstacles [11, 34] . The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of a multidisciplinary team of health workers or approach in combating health emergencies and disasters and prior building of strong and consolidative health systems capable of sustaining unanticipated health emergencies and disasters. The most significant mitigation strategy and disaster preparedness for the challenges around COVID-19 is the establishment of a 24-hour information platform that included representation from the WHO Information Services. The information received from the center will be very useful for researchers and scientists for further analysis and evaluation of the issues around COVID-19. This will immensely contribute to the mitigation and preparedness strategies for the pandemic. More so, it will enable real-time identification of failures and successes, a focus on evolving needs, and feedback for subsequent interventions.

This study assessed global research evolution, prioritization, and preparedness toward health emergencies and disasters using the COVID-19 pandemic as a typical model based on productivity indices, conceptual frameworks, discipline, and collaboration networks. The study unveiled global research efforts made by researchers from different nations, disciplines, institutions, and fields. Fundamental research prioritization was noticed in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Italy, as well as from disciplines, namely, virology, microbiology, immunology, infectious diseases, veterinary sciences, general and internal medicine, and pharmacology and pharmacy. The various conceptual frameworks and thematic areas, given the research priorities during the period, were (1) epidemiologic studies of infectious bronchitis virus including coronavirus, (2) elucidation of historical respiratory viral outbreaks, (3) zoonoses and phylogenetic analysis, (4) influenza zoonosis, (5) comparative symptomatology of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and MARS-CoV, (6) perceptivity studies from SARS-CoV-1,2 outbreaks, (7) antigenic structural studies for vaccine production, and (8) antibody therapeutic target studies.

Generally, study revealed a skewed health emergency research response and prioritization only from the affected nations, which could have informed prior research preparedness from the then-unaffected countries to support decision-making and possible implementation to mitigate the pandemic. Although COVID-19 research has received progressive attention since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of studies included in this study might not be exhaustive of COVID-19 research based on the limited number of databases consulted and the fact that new studies are being published daily. However, this study recommends integrative and multidisciplinary research priority and preparation toward health emergencies and disasters from all experimental and nonexperimental biases of knowledge from affected and unaffected nations.

A new emerging zoonotic virus of concern: the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19)

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and corona virus disease-2019 (COVID-19): the epidemic and the challenges

A global bibliometric analysis of Plesiomonas-related research

Potential implications of gold-mining activities on some environmental components: a global assessment

Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement

Comparative study of the floral distribution in a portion of the Alps and the Jura

Bibliometrix: an R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis

Software survey: ScientoPy, a scientometric tool for topics trend analysis in scientific publications

Detection of paradigm shifts and emerging fields using scientific network: a case study of information technology for engineering

Exploring the COVID-19 pandemic as a catalyst for stimulating future research agendas for managing crises and disasters at international sport events, Event Manag

Rapid response to COVID-19: health informatics support for outbreak management in an academic health system

How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic?

What Will Be the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in the US? Rough Estimates of Disease Scenarios

Preparedness and vulnerability of African countries against importations of COVID-19: a modelling study

Epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus disease-19 in Gansu province, China, 2020, Emerg

Spatiotemporal Fluctuation Scaling Law and Metapopulation Modeling of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and SARS Outbreaks

Insufficient Sensitivity of RNA Dependent RNA Polymerase Gene of SARS-CoV-2 Viral Genome as Confirmatory Test Using Korean COVID-19 Cases

The frequency distribution of scientific productivity

A framework towards bias-free contextual productivity assessment

A global survey of rankings and league tables/college and university ranking systems global perspectives and American challenges/institute for higher education policy (editor)

What contributes more to the ranking of higher education institutions? A comparison of three world university rankings

Country-specific determinants of world university rankings

Visibility and citation impact

Do open access articles have greater citation impact? a critical review of the literature

Open Access Citation Information. Final ReporteExtended Version

COVID-19 outbreak: migration, effects on society, global environment and prevention

Estimating and projecting air passenger traffic during the covid-19 coronavirus outbreak and its socio-economic impact

Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19

The Impact of COVID-19 on Brunei's Economy and Economic Policy Measures Introduced

Three-feature model to reproduce the topology of citation networks and the effects from authors' visibility on their h-index

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak: now is the time to refresh pandemic plans

Novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, 2020: intense surveillance is vital for preventing sustained transmission in new locations

Data on Cases of Corona Virus Is Obtained from Wordometers Website

Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science

The authors thank the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and the National Research Foundation. Conclusions arrived at and opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the SAMRC.

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; the writing of the manuscript; or the decision to publish the results.

Supplementary data to this chapter can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-90769-9.00033-5.