Science Mapping COVID-19 Infodemic

With the spread of COVID-19, infodemic also spread. The World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated the need to pay attention to manage infodemic. The role of infodemic in vaccination can also be important. The present study aims to provide the science map of studies on COVID-19 infodemic.

This is an applied scientometric study. Data were extracted from the Web of Science and PubMed databases. The study population consists of all studies in the field of COVID-19 infodemic published from 2019 to 2022. To draw the science map, VOSviewer software was used.  

The results based on the Web of Science data showed that professional and public health categories were the most important categories and Loftus Ef was the author with the most scientific productions. The U.S, U.K, and Australia ranked first to third, while Iran ranked 33rd in the world producing scientific works in the field of COVID-19 infodemic. The science map obtained from the databases showed the co-occurrences of the government, vaccination and social media as the most important items that made up the maps.

To control the COVID-19 infodemic, there is a need for policy making in this field and the information published in social media and pay attention to the role of government in controlling it. The relationship between infodemics and vaccination rate is also important, which requires a correct policy by the Ministry of Health.