Bibliometric Analysis and Health Evidence Map of Scientific Production on COVID-19 in Peru

Introduction: In January 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global public health emergency. Objective: To evaluate Peru's scientific production on COVID-19 during the 2020 – 2021 period. Methods: A bibliometric study was carried out in five databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, SciELO and PubMed). Documents on COVID-19 related to health and with at least one author with Peru institutional affiliation were included. The following data was collected: number of Peruvian institutions, medical specialty of the articles, scientific journals where they were published, funding of researchers, regional distribution of scientific production and collaboration networks with other countries. Results: One thousand five hundred ten manuscripts were included; the majority were original articles (44.0%) and letters to the editor (22.3%). The greatest scientific production was found in Lima and the entities that contributed the most were the universities. Only one journal is international, out of the ten journals with the highest scientific production in Peru, and it belongs to Q1. Public health was the subject of 28.3% of the manuscripts, followed by epidemiology with 18.8%. The international collaboration rate was 42%. The United States stands out with 15.7% of publications. Only 13.8% of manuscripts received funding. More than half (59.7%) of the articles were published in English. Conclusions: During the 2020 – 2021 period, one thousand five hundred ten Peruvian documents on COVID-19 were published, mostly original articles and in foreign journals. A small percentage had national financing, the main contributions came from universities in Lima and international collaboration was 42%.