Global trends in smoking cessation research from 2002 to 2021: A bibliometric and visual analysis

This study aimed to analyze the scientific outputs of smoking cessation research and explore its hotspots and frontiers from 2002 to 2021, using bibliometric methods. We use the core collection of Web of Science as a data source, and apply bibliometric methods to visually analyze articles published in smoking cessation research from 2002 to 2021, including publication year, countries/regions, journals, authors, institutions, and keywords. The VOSviewer (1.6.16) tool was used for the analysis. A total of 8797 articles related to smoking cessation research were identified. The USA was the leading contributor with 4671 publications. NICOTINE＆TOBACCO RESEARCH contributed the most publications (528), with the most citations (13746) and the highest H-index (59). The most contributing institutions were the University College London and University of California San Francisco. Robert West was most productive author. We found active collaborations among both productive authors and productive institutions. There were five hot topics in smoking cessation research: (1) Public health harm from tobacco; (2) The role of e-health in smoking cessation; (3) Role of primary health care in eliminating tobacco dependence; (4) Nicotine replacement therapy and pharmacotherapy; (5) The biological and clinical understanding of addiction. Our current study showed a growing trend in smoking cessation based on the number of published articles over the last 20 years. There was active cooperation between institutions, and authors. Electronic cigarettes, mHealth, eHealth, public health and mental health are foci of new and emerging research.