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Introduction: Despite two decades of rotavirus vaccine implementation, rotavirus remains a leading cause of diarrhea globally. Mapping how rotavirus vaccination research has evolved over time can inform policy, funding, and emerging research priorities amidst evolving global health landscapes. Here, we map the geographic and thematic evolution of rotavirus vaccination research from 2004 to 2024. Methods: We retrieved PubMed publications from 2004 to 2024 using the search terms: RotavirusTitle/Abstract AND (Vaccin*Title/Abstract OR immuniz*Title/Abstract). After preprocessing the text, structural topic modelling was performed using year and continent as covariates. The optimal number of topics (K = 10) was determined using held-out likelihood and interpretability. Topic prevalence, temporal trends, and inter-topic correlations were analyzed using stacked area charts, beta regression and network analysis, respectively. Results: Analysis of 5003 PubMed articles revealed two distinct phases of growth. A period of rapid growth occurred from 2004 to 2016, with average annual publications nearly doubling from 143 (2004–2010) to 276 (2011–2016), followed by a plateau, with averages of 293 (2017–2020) and 296 (2021–2024). Geographically, North America dominated overall (34.1%), but Asia's contribution surged from 12.8% to 39.0% (p < 0.001), with Africa's rising from 1.3% to 16.3% (p < 0.001) over the study period. Thematic analysis identified Disease Burden (Topic 4; 13.0%), Molecular Epidemiology (Topic 8; 12.9%), and Enteric Pathogen Landscape (Topic 9: 12.1%) as predominant topics. While most topics exhibited year-to-year variability, only two demonstrated significant temporal trends: Topic 5: Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy (Coefficient = 0.1014, p < 0.001; upward) and Topic 3: Vaccine Safety and Immunogenicity (Coefficient = −0.026, p = 0.002; downward). Thematic clustering revealed three core domains, Vaccine Science (16.6%), Disease Burden/Epidemiology (38.0%), and Vaccine Evaluation/Implementation (34.4%). Conclusion: We observed dynamic evolution in rotavirus research with thematic and geographical shifts tied to key global policy changes, vaccine rollouts, and impact evaluations, underscoring the need for sustained surveillance, global collaboration, focused funding, and innovation to address contemporary challenges.
Ogwel et al. (Sat,) studied this question.