Topics emerged in the biomedical field and their characteristics

Abstract

This study aims to reveal what kind of topics emerged in the biomedical domain by retrospectively analyzing newly added MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms from 2001 to 2010 and how they have been used for indexing since their inclusion in the thesaurus. The goal is to investigate if the future trend of a new topic depends on what kind of topic it is without relying on external indicators such as growth, citation patterns, or word co-occurrences. This topic perspective complements the traditional publication perspective in studying emerging topics. Results show that topic characteristics, including topic category, clinical significance, and if a topic has any narrower terms at the time of inclusion, influence future popularity of a new MeSH. Four emergence trend patterns are identified, including emerged and sustained, emerged not sustained, emerged and fluctuated, and not yet emerged. Predictive models using topic characteristics for emerging topic prediction show promise. This suggests that the characteristics of topics and domain should be considered when predicting future emergence of research topics. This study bridges a gap in emerging topic prediction by offering a topic perspective and advocates for considering topic and domain characteristics as well as economic, medical, and environmental impact when studying emerging topics in the biomedical domain.