'Getting the most out from keywords'

Global research on wearable technology applications in healthcare: A data-driven bibliometric analysis

Background

In recent years, with the advancement of technological innovation and the widespread application of semiconductor materials, wearable technology has emerged as a significant branch in healthcare, demonstrating considerable potential for further development. This analysis aims to explore the global scientific trends on wearable technology applications in healthcare.

Methods

Scientific publications on wearable technology applications in healthcare from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2022 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. A total of 19,426 publications were included in the bibliometric analysis. VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used to conduct bibliometric and visualized analysis. Key metrics such as country, institution, author co-authorships, cited references, journal citations, and keyword co-occurrences were selected for analytical emphasis.

Results

The United States of America and China emerged as the top two contributing countries, with significantly higher publication compared to other countries/regions. Chinese Acad Sci and Sensors are the institution and journal with the largest number of publications, respectively. Najafi, Bijan is the most active author. Research hotspots of wearable technology were divided into four clusters based on the co-occurrence analysis of keywords: (1) Wearable Technology for Detecting and Monitoring Human Physiological Parameters; (2) Wearable Technology for Human Chronic Disease Detection and Management; (3) Wearable Technology Exercise Health and Sports Rehabilitation Therapy under Intervention; and (4) The Technical Realization of Accuracy Enhancement in Wearable Technology.

Conclusions

The number of annual publications on wearable technology applications in healthcare has increased over the past 20 years. This analysis identified the status, trends, hot topics, and frontiers of wearable technology applications in healthcare. These findings will help researchers quickly identify emerging themes and offer new insights into the future development of wearable technology in healthcare.

Past, Present and Future of Research on Wearable Technologies for Healthcare: A Bibliometric Analysis Using Scopus

Currently, wearable technology is present in different fields that aim to satisfy our needs in daily life, including the improvement of our health in general, the monitoring of patient health, ensuring the safety of people in the workplace or supporting athlete training. The objective of this bibliometric analysis is to examine and map the scientific advances in wearable technologies in healthcare, as well as to identify future challenges within this field and put forward some proposals to address them. In order to achieve this objective, a search of the most recent related literature was carried out in the Scopus database. Our results show that the research can be divided into two periods: before 2013, it focused on design and development of sensors and wearable systems from an engineering perspective and, since 2013, it has focused on the application of this technology to monitoring health and well-being in general, and in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals wherever feasible. Our results reveal that the United States has been the country with the highest publication rates, with 208 articles (34.7%). The University of California, Los Angeles, is the institution with the most studies on this topic, 19 (3.1%). Sensors journal (Switzerland) is the platform with the most studies on the subject, 51 (8.5%), and has one of the highest citation rates, 1461. We put forward an analysis of keywords and, more specifically, a pennant chart to illustrate the trends in this field of research, prioritizing the area of data collection through wearable sensors, smart clothing and other forms of discrete collection of physiological data.