Scientists spent more time researching the mental health impact of COVID-19 during the pandemic than the disease itself.
New analysis of more than 800,000 COVID-related studies, by Sydney’s Macquarie University, found mental health was the number one issue under the microscope.
Study author Professor Longbing Cao said artificial intelligence was used to analyse keywords in 809,000 article abstracts of COVID-19-related scientific literature published in English from January 2020 to April 2023, the World Health Organisation-recognised active period of the pandemic.
Professor Cao said it found the most cited research topic was not virology nor medical treatments, but mental health.
“Mental health, including anything related to sentiment, anxiety or depression, was the most frequently expressed concern in the papers,” he said.
Professor Cao said the study found the top five research keywords explored in COVID-19-related literature were mental health, pandemic, vaccination, second waves and lockdowns.
He said the focus on mental health showed both the wide-ranging impacts of the pandemic and the multidisciplinary nature of the scientific response.
Professor Cao and his team used techniques including advanced natural language processing, machine learning, big data analytics and visualisation to examine articles written by 2.3 million researchers from 194 countries, covering 27 subject areas.
“Collecting the data was a huge challenge.”
He said the results of the three-and-a-half-year study offered insights into the global scientific response to the pandemic.
“One of the most striking findings was the level of international collaboration, particularly between China and the United States.
“Despite well-publicised political tensions between the two countries during this period, scientists maintained strong collaborative relationships.”
Professor Cao said the US, China, the United Kingdom, Italy and India ranked top five globally in publication quantity and cumulative impact, while the top five in research productivity were the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, France and the US.
“Among G20 countries, Argentina, South Korea and Australia were less productive in COVID-19 research than expected,” he said.
