Abstract
BACKGROUND: This bibliometric analysis evaluates health-related research in Public Health, Environmental Health, and Occupational Health (PHEOH) journals indexed in Scopus, categorized by Scimago quartiles (Q1-Q4) from 2016 to 2024. The study aims to identify trends, research productivity, and thematic priorities across these journals. METHODS: From 654 eligible journals, 100 (25 per quartile) were randomly selected. A total of 70,580 documents were retrieved from Scopus and analysed using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer (v.1.6.20). Co-occurrence analysis of author and indexed keywords was performed separately for each quartile to identify research hotspots, thematic clusters, and trends over time. RESULTS: Q1 journals contributed the highest proportion of publications (37.7%), followed by Q2 (25.4%), Q4 (22.1%), and Q3 (14.8%). The United States dominated output in Q1-Q3 journals, whereas Pakistan led in Q4. Across all quartiles, "COVID-19" was the most frequent and highly connected author keyword, followed by mental health, SARS-CoV-2, and child-related research. Indexed keyword analysis ranked "humans" highest in every quartile. Topics related to SARS-CoV-2 and mental health received the highest average citations. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced the research agenda of Public, Environmental, and Occupational Health journals between 2016 and 2024, particularly in higher-quartile outlets. The findings reveal persistent disparities in productivity across journal tiers and geographic regions.