Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40993907›Full record

ArticleHealth economics2026

The Rise of Health Economics: Transforming the Landscape of Economic Research.

Lorenz Gschwent, Björn Hammarfelt, Martin Karlsson, Mathias Kifmann

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Health economics, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Lorenz GschwentUniversity of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany.
Björn HammarfeltSwedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS), University of Borås, Borås, Sweden.
Martin KarlssonCINCH, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-9354-096X
Mathias KifmannHamburg Center for Health Economics, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This paper explores the evolving role of health economics within economic research and publishing over the past 30 years. Historically, largely a niche field, health economics has become increasingly prominent, with the share of health economics papers in top journals growing significantly. We aim to identify the factors behind this rise. Using a combination of bibliometric methods and natural language processing (NLP), we classify abstracts to define health economics. Adapting NLP methods to evaluate the novelty, impact, and quality of academic papers, we demonstrate that the mainstreaming of health economics is driven by innovative, high-quality research, with two notable waves in quality ratings that highlight the emergence and impact of distinct subfields within the discipline. We find a strong positive correlation between citations and quality ratings, with health economics papers receiving fewer citations for their quality compared to other economics fields. Pandemic-related research received a high number of citations during 2020 and 2021; however, our findings indicate that this work was not systematically more novel or impactful than prior studies within the same subfield.

Indexed as

Economics, MedicalBibliometricsHumansNatural Language ProcessingPeriodicals as Topic

Identifiers

PMID40993907
PMCPMC12680912

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.