Navigating the Complex Landscape of Emergency Rescue: Insights from a Co-Citation Analysis

Abstract

The significance of emergency rescue in protecting lives and property during unforeseen events, such as natural disasters and accidental calamities, is undeniable. However, the emergency rescue knowledge domain spans multiple disciplines. While each relevant discipline offers comprehensive research progress and trend analyses, there is a lack of a holistic literature review and visual analysis grounded in the organic integration of these disciplines. This study undertook a co-citation analysis of research papers indexed in the Web of Science database using CiteSpace, with the objective of reviewing the thematic characteristics and evolutionary trajectory of the emergency rescue knowledge domain from 2009 to 2024. The results indicate that the emergency rescue knowledge domain primarily consists of nine thematic clusters, exhibiting distinct temporal evolution patterns, encompassing emergency rescue scenarios, technologies, personnel, and corresponding system developments. Notably, the largest thematic cluster is "Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA)", which continues to be an actively researched area. Research in areas such as computer vision and algorithms for real-time target detection in emergency rescue scenarios is a current frontier in research and an important development direction for emergency rescue technologies. The findings of these areas will facilitate both academic and industrial stakeholders in understanding the current research landscape in the promising field of emergency rescue and guide subsequent endeavors.