International Journal of One Health Available at www.onehealthjournal.org/Vol.3/7.pdf International Journal of One Health, EISSN: 2455-8931 42 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Depiction of global trends in publications on mobile health Shahla Foozonkhah 1 and Leila R. Kalankesh 2,3 1. Department of Health Information Technology Assessment, Standardization and Tariff Setting, Iranian Ministry of Health and Education,Tehran, Iran; 2. Tabriz Health Services Management Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 3. Department of Health Information Technology, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran. Corresponding author: Leila R. Kalankesh, e-mail: Lrkalankesh@tbzmed.ac.ir Co-author: SF: sh.foozonkhah@health.gov.ir Received: 04-04-2017, Accepted: 20-06-2017, Published online: 18-07-2017 doi: 10.14202/IJOH.2017.42-45 How to cite this article: Foozonkhah S, Kalankesh LR. Depiction of global trends in publications on mobile health. Int J One Health 2017;3:42-45. Abstract Background: Variety of mobile health initiatives in different levels have been undertaken across many countries. Trends of these initiatives can be reflected in the research published in m-health domain. Aim: This paper aims to depict global trends in the published works on m-health topic. Materials and Methods: The Web of Science database was used to identify all relevant published papers on mobile health domain worldwide. The search was conducted on documents published from January 1898 to December 2014. The criteria for searching were set to be “mHealth” or “Mobile health” or “m health” or “m_health” or “m-health” in topics. Results: Findings revealed an increasing trend of citations and publications on m-health research since 2012. English was the first most predominant language of the publication. The US had the highest number of publication with 649 papers; however, the Netherlands ranked first after considering publication number in terms of countries population. “Studies in Health Technology and Informatics” was the source title with highest number of publications on mobile health topics. Conclusion: Trend of research observed in this study indicates the continuing growth is happening in mobile health domain. This may imply that the new model of health-care delivery is emerging. Further research is needed to specify directions of mobile health research. It is necessary to identify and prioritize the research gaps in this domain. Keywords: mHealth, mobile health, publication trend, research trend, scientometrics. Introduction Mobile health is “medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants, and other wireless devices [1].” M-health as the biggest technology breakthrough of our time [2], is an umbrella term for describing the use of mobile telecommunication technologies to deliver health- care and to support population health [3,4]. Although mobile technologies cannot carry drugs and health- care providers, they can transfer health information in different ways [5]. Particularly m-health technologies have potential to be used for responding in both com- municable and non-communicable disease burden in developing countries [4]. M-health technologies have proved to have ben- efit for both health-care professionals and patients. Health-care professionals can use m-health for patient monitoring, access to references, communication and consultation, clinical decision-making, informa- tion management, time management, health record access and maintenance, and medical education [6]. When mobile health initiative are used by public and patients, they can facilitate self-care and self-manage- ment [7]. Evidence shows an explosion of m-health activ- ities worldwide [8]. Variety of mHealth initiatives in different levels have been undertaken across many coun- tries. Some but not all of these countries are UK, Ghana, Senegal, France, Mexico, Estonia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Malta, Greece, Vietnam, and Germany [1]. Therefore, trace of these initiatives can be reflected in the research published in m-health domain. As the mobile health tech- nologies continue to grow, it seems inevitable to examine the research published in the literature in this field for characterizing its trend. This paper aims to depict global trends in the published works on m-Health topic. Materials and Methods Source of data The Web of Science database was deployed to identify all relevant published papers on mobile health domain worldwide. The reason for selecting the Web of Sciences was the fact that its coverage in science is sufficiently comprehensive and it also includes the cited references for each paper. Study selection and data analysis Articles on topics of mobile health originating from different countries across the world were used for examining their scientific production in this field. The Copyright: Foozonkhah and Kalankesh. 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