Digital health implementation research across selected African countries: a bibliometric analysis of maternal health and infectious diseases with observations on precision medicine representation (2015-2025).

Authors

Abayomi O Agbeyangi, Sweeta Agrawal, Jose M Lukose

Published in

Frontiers in digital health. Volume 8. Pages 1831353. Epub Jun 23, 2026.

Abstract

Digital health technologies are increasingly recognised as important tools for strengthening healthcare delivery across African health systems. Despite rapid growth in digital health innovation, the implementation-oriented research landscape remains fragmented, with limited synthesis of the field's thematic structure, collaboration patterns, and evolving research priorities. This study maps the intellectual structure and thematic evolution of implementation-focused digital health research across selected African countries (South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania and Rwanda).
A bibliometric analysis was conducted on peer-reviewed publications indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed between 2015 and 2025. Records were retrieved using a structured Boolean search strategy combining digital health, implementation, geographic, clinical-domain, care-setting, and outcome-related terms. The search captured implementation-oriented publications with explicit references to selected African countries. Following screening and deduplication, 440 publications were included. Analyses were performed using the Bibliometrix R package and included performance analysis, co-word analysis, thematic mapping, collaboration-network analysis, and temporal trend analysis.
Digital health research across the selected African countries expanded substantially during the study period, particularly after 2020. Research activity was strongly dominated by mobile-health-supported interventions targeting maternal health, HIV care, tuberculosis adherence, and primary healthcare delivery. Thematic mapping identified "mobile health-antenatal care-mobile phone" as a motor theme, while "mHealth-HIV-Kenya" emerged as a broadly connected but conceptually fragmented basic theme. Telemedicine-related research appeared as a specialised niche theme, whereas tuberculosis-focused digital adherence interventions occupied an emerging-or-declining thematic position. Keyword trend analyses further indicated a transition from feasibility-oriented studies toward implementation-focused and system-oriented digital health research. Precision medicine and rare-disease terminology did not form distinct thematic clusters within the retrieved corpus.
Implementation-oriented digital health research across the selected African countries is undergoing rapid expansion, with increasing emphasis on scalable mobile health systems and integrated healthcare delivery. However, thematic fragmentation, limited interoperability, and the absence of longitudinal system-level evaluation remain important challenges.

PMID:
42416812
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 08 Jul 2026.

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