• Six research domains emerge in fair humanitarian logistics using network analysis. • Field shifted from efficiency focus to ethical considerations since 2017. • Integrated framework incorporates operations, technology, and stakeholders. • Emerging technologies enhance fairness in disaster response and aid delivery. • Climate adaptation and human behaviour represent critical research gaps. This study examines how fairness, equity, and equality (FEE) have been integrated into humanitarian logistics, marking a transition from efficiency-focused approaches towards more ethical and inclusive disaster response and aid distribution practices. Using a systematic literature review based on citation network analysis, we analysed 275 SCI/SSCI journal articles published between 2007 and 2025. We employed analytical tools, such as CitNetExplorer, Pajek, and VOSviewer, to facilitate citation network mapping, main path identification, and keyword co-occurrence analysis. We identify six key research domains and outline their knowledge structures. This field has expanded rapidly since 2017, with strong contributions from operations research and management science. Scholarly focus has shifted from early theoretical deprivation-cost models to empirically oriented distributional-preference models. The study introduces an integrated framework combining the six identified research domains with deprivation-cost models and distributional-preference models, emphasizing the need for future research to balance psychological needs and economic efficiency in resource allocation in humanitarian logistics.
Dik et al. (Thu,) studied this question.