Capturing Evolution of Research Trends in Air Pollutants and its Health Impact: A Bibliometric Approach

Abstract

Air pollution has become one of the major problems for environment and human health. Today, both developing and developed countries are affected by air pollution, where approximately 1.1 billion people breathe unhealthy air. One out of eight deaths globally is attributed to poor quality of air. In pragmatics of development and economical advancements, the constituents responsible for poor quality of air keep on evolving, as well as have a characteristics which depends upon geographical locations and policy frameworks in that area. Consequently, the health problem associated with air pollution, also keeps on evolving with time, as new relationship are found epidemiologically, based on chronic or acute Exposure. To understand the evolution and trends of research in this field, the study analyzes scholarly publications in air pollution and its health impact with respect to evolution of pollutants and their sources using bibliometric approach; such kind of research is missing that need attention for policy formulation. Bibliometric approach has been used to study the research trends as well as contribution of authors, institutions, countries etc. This paper aims to analyze the evolution of research trend in the pollutants, its sources and the diseases over the last forty years from 1981-2020, dividing it into three phases i.e. 1981-2000, 2001-2010, 2011-2020. In the first phase the SO2 was of utmost interest to public as well as researcher. Since 2001 onward focus has shifted toward particulate matter and in last decade this is more emphasized upon fine and ultra-fine particles. The presents study provides the evolution of the air pollutants along with health impacts that has moved from Asthma, pulmonary functions to COPD, and cardiovascular dysfunctions like heart rate variability and oxidative stress to eventually inflammation, blood pressure and diabetes.