Background This bibliometric analysis evaluates health-related research in Public Health, Environmental Health, and Occupational Health (PHEOH) journals indexed in Scopus, categorized by Scimago quartiles (Q1–Q4) from 2016 to 2024. The study aims to identify trends, research productivity, and thematic priorities across these journals. Methods From 654 eligible journals, 100 (25 per quartile) were randomly selected. A total of 70,580 documents were retrieved from Scopus and analysed using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer (v.1.6.20). Co-occurrence analysis of author and indexed keywords was performed separately for each quartile to identify research hotspots, thematic clusters, and trends over time. Results Q1 journals contributed the highest proportion of publications (37.7%), followed by Q2 (25.4%), Q4 (22.1%), and Q3 (14.8%). The United States dominated output in Q1–Q3 journals, whereas Pakistan led in Q4. Across all quartiles, “COVID-19” was the most frequent and highly connected author keyword, followed by mental health, SARS-CoV-2, and child-related research. Indexed keyword analysis ranked “humans” highest in every quartile. Topics related to SARS-CoV-2 and mental health received the highest average citations. Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced the research agenda of Public, Environmental, and Occupational Health journals between 2016 and 2024, particularly in higher-quartile outlets. The findings reveal persistent disparities in productivity across journal tiers and geographic regions.
Varnousfaderani et al. (Wed,) studied this question.