Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping

Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping

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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Public Health journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/puhe

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Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping C. Zhang a, J. Zhang a, C. Long b, J. Zheng a, C. Su a, W. Hu a, Z. Duan a,* a b

School of Public Health, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

article info Article history: Received 6 December 2014 Received in revised form 28 July 2015 Accepted 3 November 2015 Available online xxx

and core problems for research on the health of college students: social network analysis, co-occurrence word analysis and centrality,9 constructing a keywords network of research on the health of college students, excavating the implicit knowledge hidden in research journals on the health of college students, analysing the development trends and knowledge structures in the field, and disclosing the process by which research subjects are changing dynamically. Articles from 2001 to 2012 were collected from the scientific literature database Web of Science. The search formula ‘Subject ¼ (student* AND health* AND university OR college), Document type ¼ (ARTICLE)’ yielded 7022 records.

Introduction Nowadays, school health care is receiving more and more attention. School health care integrates health care services, health education, health counselling and local health services. Its ultimate goal is to protect, maintain and promote the health of students. As an important part of school health care research, the health of college students is garnering increasing attention from governments and researchers all over the world, as it becomes a common focus for media, schools, parents and students themselves.1,2 However, although scholars have explored theories and conducted research on the health of college students from various angles, including psychology,3,4 nutrition,5 behaviour6,7 and interference,8 a comprehensive understanding and systematic review of the field is lacking. This study used the following methods with the aim of identifying general development trends, research progress

Annual distribution of keywords In total, 3804 keywords were extracted (overall frequency 12,888) from 3844 documents that met the inclusion criteria. From 2001 to 2012, the number of publications, number of keywords and keyword frequency showed an increasing tendency, while the mean number of keywords and mean keyword frequency remained stable. Before 2005, research in this field was at an early stage and received limited attention, which translated into a low number of publications. However, with the rapid development of research in this field, the number of publications increased significantly after 2005. Therefore, the study period was divided into two periods: 2001e2005 and 2006e2012. Comparison of these two periods enables changes in this research field to be shown more clearly.

* Corresponding author. No. 56, South Xinjian Road, Taiyuan, China. Tel.: þ86 03514135285; fax: þ86 03512024239. E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. Duan). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.11.002 0033-3506/© 2015 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: Zhang C, et al., Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping, Public Health (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.11.002

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Keywords network from 2001 to 2005 Fig. 1(a) shows the knowledge map of keywords (frequency 5) from research on the health of college students, where node size represents betweenness centrality and ties between the nodes represent keyword co-occurrence frequency. ‘College students’, lying in the centre of the map, is surrounded by numerous related keywords. To highlight the main structure of the field during this period and tease apart the network dynamics, the inclusion criteria of co-occurrence frequency was limited by omitting those connections with low-occurrence frequency. By limiting co-occurrence frequency to 3, the network structure in Fig. 1(b) is obviously simplified, drawing attention to the major structure and two satellite words, ‘college student’ and ‘education’. When keyword co-occurrence frequency is increased to 4 [Fig. 1(c)], the map structure reveals two large content blocks. The first, focussing on the health of college students, is centred on the keyword ‘college students’ and is surrounded by terms such as ‘smoking’ and ‘mental health’. The second, focussing on the ways and means of health management of college students, is centred around ‘education’, which is then connected to keywords such as ‘curriculum’ and ‘KABP (Knowledge-Attitude-Belief-Practice)’. When bridging the gap between ‘college students’ and ‘education’, the two large blocks combine into a cohesive entity.

Keywords network from 2006 to 2012 The number of publications, number of keywords and keyword frequency related to research on the health of college students increased significantly between 2006 and 2012. Ninety-eight high-frequency words (defined as occurring 20 times) were extracted, totalling a frequency of 6059 [Fig. 1(d)]. Compared with 2001e2005, new keywords emerged, keyword frequency increased, and the relationships between keywords changed. Most keywords were found in 2006e2012. The newly emerged keywords can be divided into five categories: target population (‘dental students’, ‘adolescence’), diseases (‘STDs’, ‘HPV’), factors influencing health (‘suicide’, ‘help-seeking behaviour’), research methods and measures (‘health education’, ‘assessment’) and other aspects (‘public health’, ‘ethnicity’). Compared with the findings from 2001 to 2005, there were more high-frequency words, the co-occurrence frequency was higher, and the network structure was more complicated. The research subject structure was obvious during this period, with ‘college students’ as the absolute centre surrounded by an unclear satellite structure. When co-occurrence frequency 12 [Fig. 1(e)], the words most strongly connected with ‘college students’ were ‘alcohol’, ‘mental health’ and ‘physical exercise’. When co-occurrence frequency 15 [Fig. 1(f)], the topical research networks, the core of which were ‘alcohol’, ‘depression’ and ‘obesity’, became more apparent.

Subject network Fig. 1(g) shows that among the subject fields related to the published articles on the health of college students from 2001

to 2005, the betweenness centrality of public, environmental & occupational health was the strongest, and was most obviously connected to education & educational research and health care sciences & services; these were the three leading subjects in research on the health of college students. Furthermore, the centrality of subjects such as general & internal medicine, psychology and psychiatry was high, suggesting that they play an important role in bridging gaps in research on the health of college students. Compared with 2001e2005, there were more subject fields related to published articles on the health of college students, and the interdisciplinary links were more obvious from 2006 to 2012 [Fig. 1(h)]. New subject fields, such as family studies, communication, and behavioral sciences, appeared. Furthermore, the betweenness centrality of psychology surpassed that of public, environmental & occupational health, and became the network centre, although education & educational research, health care sciences & services, and general & internal medicine maintained high levels of activity.

High amount of journals During both periods, most articles related to research on the health of college students were published in the Journal of American College Health. Academic Medicine and Medical Education ranked second and third in 2001e2005, and BMC Public Health and Addictive Behaviors ranked second and third in 2006e2012. Although Academic Medicine was ranked second in terms of number of published articles on research on the health of college students in 2001e2005, it fell to 19th place in 2006e2012. Similarly, although Medical Education ranked third in 2001e2005, it did not appear in the ‘Top 20 list’ in 2006e2012. On the other hand, BMC Public Health moved up to claim second place from its rank of 17th in 2001e2005, and Addictive Behaviors remained stable in rank in both periods.

Discussion Based on journals, keyword co-occurrence analyses, social network analyses and scientific knowledge mapping, this article systematically discusses the main knowledge structure and development process of the field's scientific knowledge map. The amount of literature on the health of college students, increasing with each passing year, reached a turning point in 2005e2006. The number of articles published between 2009 and 2011 accounts for half of the total amount of literature, indicating that more and more experts and scholars are devoting themselves to research in this field. Research subjects on the health of college students have expanded extensively, as research content has become more concrete. Between 2001 and 2005, research was fairly broad, where subcategories such as smoking, psychology, and research and intervention means focused on technologies and methods of health education. Between 2006 and 2012, researchers honed in on specific fields related to the health of college students, such as illicit drug use, risk factors and selfefficacy. However, physical exercise, smoking and

Please cite this article in press as: Zhang C, et al., Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping, Public Health (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.11.002

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Fig. 1 e Knowledge mapping of the health of college students. (a) Knowledge map of keywords on research on the health of college students from 2001 to 2005 (keyword frequency ≥5). (b) Knowledge map of keywords on research on the health of college students from 2001 to 2005 (keyword frequency ≥5, co-occurrence frequency ≥3). (c) Knowledge map of keywords on research on the health of college students from 2001 to 2005 (keyword frequency ≥5, co-occurrence frequency ≥4). (d) Knowledge map of keywords on research on the health of college students from 2006 to 2012 (keyword frequency ≥20). (e) Knowledge map of keywords on research on the health of college students from 2006 to 2012 (keyword frequency ≥20, cooccurrence frequency ≥12). (f) Knowledge map of keywords on research on the health of college students from 2006 to 2012 (keyword frequency ≥20, co-occurrence frequency ≥15). (g) Knowledge map of subject fields with high frequency of research on the health of college students from 2001 to 2005 (keyword frequency ≥20). (h) Knowledge map of subject fields with high frequency of research on the health of college students from 2006 to 2012 (keyword frequency ≥20).

Please cite this article in press as: Zhang C, et al., Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping, Public Health (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.11.002

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psychological health of college students have continued to attract the attention of researchers, as research into fitness, social support and health dangers of college students have become better received. From public, environmental & occupational health, education & educational research and health care sciences & services in 2001e2005 to family studies, communication and behavioral sciences in 2006e2012, research on health problems of college students has caught the attention of more and more disciplinary fields. Research into the psychological health of college students was emphasized in 2006e2012, indicating that this field has attracted the attention of researchers. Journal of American College Health has published the majority of articles and most research findings regarding the health of college students. The presence of Addictive Behaviors in the field has remained stable, while that of American Journal of Health Behavior has been increasing gradually, indicating that there is a growing trend to focus on behaviour in research on the health of college students. The most likely reason why the ranking of BMC Public Health increased dramatically to second in 2006e2012 is that BMC Public Health is an open access journal that publishes a very large number of research papers each year. Furthermore, four psychology journals appeared in the Top 20 journals publishing research on the health of college students in 2006e2012, which reflects the increasingly important role of psychology as a research approach for the health of college students.

Author statements Ethical approval None sought.

Funding The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71473154; 71403155), the Ministry of Education in China (Research Projects of Humanities and

Social Sciences on Young Fund, No. 13YJCZH239), and Shanxi Province Education Science's ‘Twelfth Five-Year Plan’ Project (No. GH-13028).

Competing interests None declared.

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Please cite this article in press as: Zhang C, et al., Analyses of research on the health of college students based on a perspective of knowledge mapping, Public Health (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.11.002