The global landscape of planetary health: A bibliometric analysis over the last decade (2015-2024) since emergence

Planetary health is an interdisciplinary field that examines the complex connections between human health and the earth's ecosystems. Established by the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission in 2015, it seeks to understand and address health risks arising from anthropogenic environmental change. As an emerging but impactful discipline, we aimed to explore the evolution of planetary health research landscape for the first decade through a bibliometric analysis of publications during the last decade from January 2015 to December 2024, sourced from databases including PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Utilizing the bibliometrix, and ArcGIS software, we visualized the keywords, co-occurrence networks and publication trends. A total of 587 publications, with a peak in 2022, were included in our analysis. These publications were published in 244 journals, written by authors from 102 countries. Key themes identified were climate change, sustainability, food security, and public health, with prominent links to One Health and Eco Health though major gaps exist in indigenous health, health equity, policy and education. While the contributions were dominated by high-income countries and specialized journals, regions most affected by planetary health challenges, were underrepresented. Amid global health and environmental inequalities, our paper demonstrates the growing interdisciplinary engagement of planetary health and underscores the unmet need for the equitable and growing collaborations with most vulnerable and resource poor settings, and the planetary health integration into global policy frameworks. • Planetary health is vital to examine complex connections between humans and ecosystems • A bibliometric analysis was conducted to explore the evolution of planetary health • Key themes were climate change, sustainability, food security, and public health • Major gaps exist in indigenous health, health equity, policy and education • Equitable integration of planetary health into global policy will be impactful