Global Burden of Skin Disease Representation in the Literature: Bibliometric Analysis

Background: The global burden of skin disease may be reduced through research efforts focused on skin diseases with the highest reported disability-adjusted life years. Objective: This study evaluates the representation of dermatologic conditions comprising the highest disability-adjusted life years in dermatology literature to identify areas that could benefit from greater research focus. Methods: The top 10 skin disorders according to their respective disability-adjusted life years as per the 2013 Global Burden of Disease were identified using previous studies. The top 5 dermatology journals ranked by the 2019 h-index were also identified. A PubMed search of each journal was performed using individual skin disease terms. From 2015 to 2020, all indexed publications pertaining to each disease were recorded and compared to the total number of publications for each journal surveyed. Results: A total of 19,727 papers were published in the 5 journals over the span of 2015-2020. Although melanoma ranked as the eighth highest in disability-adjusted life years, it had the highest representation in the literature (1995/19,727, 10.11%). Melanoma was followed in representation by psoriasis (1936/19,727, 9.81%) and dermatitis (1927/19,727, 9.77%). These 3 conditions comprised a total of 29.69% (5858/19,727) of the total publications, while the remaining 7 skin conditions were represented by a combined 6.79% (1341/19,727) of the total publications. Conclusions: This research identifies gaps in the literature related to the top skin diseases contributing to the global burden of disease. Our study provides insight into future opportunities of focused research on less-studied skin diseases to potentially aid in reducing the global burden of skin disease.