Global trends assessment of environmental health degradation studies from 1990 to 2018

The impacts of anthropogenic activities (AA) on the natural environment have been one of the most critical and dynamic research areas within the scope of environmental assessment in recent years. This study aimed at investigating the probabilistic affinity index between environmental health degradation (EHD) and AA globally. In this research, a global scientometric assessment of 607 academic research articles between 1991 and 2018 on EHD and other factors such as human and natural activities is presented in this study to characterise the intellectual dynamics by visualising and identifying the strength, evolution of the co-citation network, collaboration network and trends. An in-depth analysis of EHD and AA research was conducted to better understand the global trends and directions that have emerged over the past 28 years in this field. The results reveal that the number of publication in the field of EHD has increased significantly and it has become noticeably an interdisciplinary research in recent years. It further revealed that most of the authors and their affiliated institutions in this research area are from USA, China, Brazil, UK, Australia, Canada, France, India, Italy and Germany. Findings from the study show that the published research in the field has increased in number, tending mostly towards an interdisciplinary research subject. The most pressing link between EHD and human activities, as represented in existing literature, includes the consequences of EHD for biodiversity and ecosystems sustainability, and emission reductions in the environmental sector. This study reveals that the probabilistic similarity measures of EHD and AA are strongly correlated with each other. The study concluded that there is a global increase in environmental health degradation research; noticeable research outcomes are mostly witnessed in developed countries compared to the developing nations.