Bibliometric and content analysis of scientific studies on vaccine hesitation published in international literature

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, concepts such as people's attitudes towards vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, and confidence in vaccines have come to the forefront. A review of the literature reveals a limited number of bibliometric analysis studies on vaccine hesitancy, and no recent studies have been conducted post-Covid-19. The aim of this research is to examine scientific studies on the topic of "vaccine hesitancy" available in the Web of Science database and to investigate how these studies are addressed globally. In this context, the objective is to identify the changes over time in studies on vaccine hesitancy, comprehensively examine studies in the field of social sciences, and thus highlight the importance of communication and communication studies in the context of vaccine hesitancy. In this study, an analysis of international scientific studies on vaccine hesitancy published in English and obtained from the Web of Science database was conducted. A total of 2305 study files were downloaded, and the data were transferred to Maxqda and Vosviewer software for analysis. The qualitative nature of this study's data, constituting bibliometric and content analysis, was analyzed and explained. The results of the study indicate a significant increase in the number of studies in this field due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The majority of studies were conducted in the fields of public health, environmental health, and occupational health. It is concluded that studies in the field of communication will have a significant impact on vaccine hesitancy, but the number of studies in this area is insufficient.