{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T00:28:33Z","timestamp":1777854513387,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,9]],"date-time":"2021-04-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1617926400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100009122","name":"Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["PRFCOV19-D1-P1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PRFCOV19-D1-P1"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100009122","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Journal of Information Science"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,4]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>During the last years, several infectious diseases have caused widespread nationwide epidemics that affected information seeking behaviours, people mobility, economics and research trends. Examples of these epidemics are 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in mainland China and Hong Kong, 2014\u20132016 Ebola epidemic in Guinea and Sierra Leone, 2015\u20132016 Zika epidemic in Brazil, Colombia and Puerto Rico and the recent COVID-19 epidemic in China and other countries. In this research article, we investigate the effect of large-scale outbreaks of infectious diseases on the research productivity and landscape of nations through the analysis of the research outputs of main countries affected by SARS, Zika and Ebola epidemics as returned by Web of Science Core Collection. Despite the mobility restrictions and the limitations of work conditions due to the epidemics, we surprisingly found that the research characteristics and productivity of the countries that have excellent or moderate research traditions and communities are not affected by infectious epidemics due to their robust long-term research structures and policy. Similarly, large-scale infectious outbreaks can even boost the research productivity of countries with limited research traditions thanks to international capacity building collaborations provided by organisations and associations from leading research countries.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/01655515211006605","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,9]],"date-time":"2021-04-09T04:43:49Z","timestamp":1617943429000},"page":"411-436","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Infectious epidemics and the research output of nations: A data-driven analysis"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"49","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3492-2014","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Houcemeddine","family":"Turki","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Medicine of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia"},{"name":"Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia"}]},{"given":"Mohamed Ali","family":"Hadj Taieb","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2277-5814","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mohamed","family":"Ben Aouicha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia"}]},{"given":"Anastassios","family":"Pouris","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for Technological Innovation, University of Pretoria, South Africa"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_3_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.socscimed.2006.08.004."},{"key":"e_1_3_3_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMp1409858."},{"key":"e_1_3_3_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMsr1513109."},{"key":"e_1_3_3_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMra1602113."},{"key":"e_1_3_3_6_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijantimicag.2020.105924."},{"key":"e_1_3_3_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.367.6484.1289."},{"key":"e_1_3_3_8_2","first-page":"287","article-title":"Short-term economic impact of the Zika virus outbreak","volume":"39","author":"Macciocchi D","year":"2016","unstructured":"Macciocchi D, Lanini S, Vairo F, et al. 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