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Topic · Occupational Therapy

Occupational Health and Performance

Occupational Health and Performance is a research topic within Occupational Therapy. Science Explorer counts 17k research works in it since 1950. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the occupational health of emergency responders and military personnel, particularly addressing issues such as back pain, injuries, physical fitness, load carriage, respiratory health, and cancer risk associated with occupational exposure. The research covers a wide range of topics including physiological, biomechanical, and medical aspects of load carriage, cardiovascular disease in firefighters, musculoskeletal injuries in adolescents, and the impact of firefighting activities on respiratory health.

  • Firefighters
  • Emergency Responders
  • Military Personnel
  • Back Pain
  • Injuries
  • Physical Fitness
  • Load Carriage
  • Respiratory Health
  • Cancer Risk
  • Occupational Exposure
Research works
17k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.7k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+14%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
46% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Occupational Health and Performance

This ranks research output and citation impact. It says nothing about the quality of diagnosis, treatment or care.

Which countries lead Occupational Health and Performance research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1.3k and 263 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.3k works
  2. 2 China 263 works
  3. 3 Brazil 216 works
  4. 4 Australia 193 works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 180 works
  6. 6 India 166 works
  7. 7 Canada 133 works
  8. 8 Spain 116 works
  9. 9 Poland 111 works
  10. 10 Türkiye 103 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 46.3%China: 9.5%Brazil: 7.8%Australia: 7.0%6 others listed: 29.3%46%largest
United States1,279 · 46.3%China263 · 9.5%Brazil216 · 7.8%Australia193 · 7.0%6 others listed808 · 29.3%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Occupational Health and Performance research?

By volume in 2022-now, United States Department of Defense publishes the most Occupational Health and Performance research, followed by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States Department of DefenseUnited States 121 works
  2. 2 Uniformed Services University of the Health SciencesUnited States 63 works
  3. 3 University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 21 works
  4. 4 Harvard UniversityUnited States 20 works
  5. 5 United States Department of Veterans AffairsUnited States 18 works
  6. 6 Bond UniversityAustralia 18 works
  7. 7 Universidade do PortoPortugal 17 works
  8. 8 United States Department of Health and Human ServicesUnited States 17 works
  9. 9 University of PittsburghUnited States 16 works
  10. 10 University of MiamiUnited States 14 works

Who are the leading researchers in Occupational Health and Performance?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Occupational Health and Performance include Theo Vos, Ali H. Mokdad and Walter Churchill Willett.

  1. 1 Theo Vos United States 439k citations
  2. 2 Ali H. Mokdad United States 429k citations
  3. 3 Walter Churchill Willett United States 411k citations
  4. 4 Ronald C. Kessler United States 360k citations
  5. 5 Cyrus Cooper United Kingdom 342k citations
  6. 6 Mika Kivimäki United Kingdom 318k citations
  7. 7 Naohiro Yonemoto Japan 297k citations
  8. 8 Luigi Ferrucci United States 281k citations
  9. 9 Frank B. Hu United States 281k citations
  10. 10 Ted R. Miller United States 279k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Occupational Health and Performance?

The most cited paper in Occupational Health and Performance is "What low back pain is and why we need to pay attention" (Jan Hartvigsen et al., 2018), with 4,759 citations. Next come "Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among US Children, Adolescents, and Adults, 1999-2002" (4,492) and "The global burden of low back pain: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study" (3,263).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 What low back pain is and why we need to pay attention Jan Hartvigsen et al. · The Lancet Open access 21 Mar 2018 4,759
2 Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among US Children, Adolescents, and Adults, 1999-2002 Allison Hedley · JAMA 15 Jun 2004 4,492
3 The global burden of low back pain: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study Damian Hoy, LYN M. MARCH, Peter Brooks et al. · Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases Open access 25 Mar 2014 3,263
4 Epidemiological features of chronic low-back pain Gunnar B. J. Andersson · The Lancet Aug 1999 3,208
5 A systematic review of the global prevalence of low back pain Damian Hoy, Christopher J Bain, Gail Williams et al. · Arthritis & Rheumatism Review 9 Jan 2012 3,058
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Occupational Health and Performance research done?

The largest centres of Occupational Health and Performance research in 2022-now are New York (United States), Bethesda (United States), Beijing (China) and London (United Kingdom). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Natick.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 New YorkUnited States 60 works
  2. 2 BethesdaUnited States 50 works
  3. 3 BeijingChina 47 works
  4. 4 LondonUnited Kingdom 45 works
  5. 5 MelbourneAustralia 42 works
  6. 6 Washington D.C.United States 41 works
  7. 7 São PauloBrazil 37 works
  8. 8 SeoulSouth Korea 36 works
  9. 9 TehranIran 35 works
  10. 10 San DiegoUnited States 33 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. NatickUS · 25.7 works284×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Occupational Health and Performance than the world average.

See Occupational Health and Performance on the map

Where is the best place to study Occupational Health and Performance?

Among universities, judged by research, Harvard University, Universidade do Porto and University of Southern Denmark score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 18.05%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Harvard UniversityUniversidade do PortoUniversity of Southe…Uniformed Services U…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Harvard UniversityUnited States 72.220.2%1.7×20 +23.8%
2Universidade do PortoPortugal 68.219.1%7.0×17 +100.4%
3University of Southern DenmarkDenmark 66.318.5%6.4×10 +14.9%
4Uniformed Services University of the Health SciencesUnited States 64.57.2%86.1×63 +21.4%
5La Trobe UniversityAustralia 64.021.1%8.9×10 +7.4%
6University of CopenhagenDenmark 59.621.3%2.3×8 +40.4%
7Bond UniversityAustralia 58.716.8%75.3×18 -27.3%
8Deakin UniversityAustralia 57.722.5%4.8×8 +73.4%
9Monash UniversityAustralia 54.513.8%3.6×13 +7.7%
10University of PittsburghUnited States 51.920.0%5.5×16 -15.2%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Occupational Health and Performance, country by country

Is Occupational Health and Performance research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 14% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Occupational Health and Performance.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Occupational Health and Performance as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.017% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%Occupational Health and Performance0.019% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Occupational Health and Performance over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Occupational Health and Performance10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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