Global Research Trends on Campylobacter spp. and Human Health: A bibliometric analysis (2017–2025)

Background Campylobacter spp. is among the leading causes of foodborne gastroenteritis worldwide, with infections caused by Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli the most common. These infections pose a major challenge to global public health. Despite the recent increase in scientific output on these bacteria, comprehensive analyses of research trends remain limited. This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on Campylobacter spp. in human health. Methods All publications on Campylobacter spp. were retrieved from the Scopus database to identify data published from 2017 to 2025. The bibliometric analyses were performed in RStudio, and VOSviewer was employed to construct and visualize network maps. Results A total of 3,027 research articles on Campylobacter spp. were screened, and the number of publications on Campylobacter spp. has been increasing year by year. The United States leads in the number of publications, with China following in second place. Frontiers in Microbiology has published the most articles on this research topic. The International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, is the most influential institution. Ahmed T., Li Y., and Houpt E. R. are among the most impactful in terms of publications, having published the most articles. The corpus involved 17,613 authors (mean of 7.7 co-authors per document) and an international co-authorship rate of 27.39%; the author co-authorship network comprised 13 clusters and the keyword co-occurrence network 4 clusters. The article by Tacconelli et al. (2018) receives the most global citations, followed by Anzalone et al. (2020), a genome-editing review retrieved by the query but unrelated to Campylobacter in human health, and Feldgarden et al. (2019). “Gastroenteritis,” “diarrhea,” “campylobacteriosis,” and “children” are the most frequently used keywords in this research area. C. jejuni and C. coli are the most studied species within the genus Campylobacter spp. Conclusions This bibliometric review offers a thorough overview of Campylobacter spp. in human health, highlighting a steady annual growth rate (3.17%), a strongly collaborative structure (27.39% international co-publications), and dominant clinical themes (gastroenteritis, diarrhea, children, antimicrobial resistance). It underscores the importance of continued research to improve the tracking and control of this pathogen.