**1. Introduction**

Globalization has accelerated the spread of health risks, and the health threats of a certain country or region may become a global problem in a short time. Therefore, the health status of the public in one country is not only determined by the political, economic, and cultural development of the land but also affected by the health and safety status of other countries in the world [1]. Due to the globalization, complexity, and diversification of health influence factors, the development of global health requires all-round cooperation from all countries in the world. Global health, in a broad context, refers to improving public health worldwide, reducing disparities, and protecting against global threats that do not consider national borders [2].

Since the 21st century, infectious diseases, chronic diseases, climate change, resource depletion, ethnic conflicts, and poverty have continuously threatened the health of the global public [3]. Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus in 2019 (COVID-19), the number of people infected with the virus worldwide has reached more than 2.1 million, causing more than 145,000 deaths, and the epidemic has spread to 211 countries (as of 15 April 2020) [4]. The new coronavirus epidemic has brought tremendous harm and threat to the health of the global public and also exposed many problems in global health governance [5]. In this context, the global experts and scholars' attention to global health likely will further increase. To promote the deepening of research in global health, it is particularly essential to comprehensively summarize and review the current research results in the field of global health. Gostin et al. introduced the development history, framework, and deficiencies of global health law,

and sought to establish domestic and global links in the field of health law [6]. Dieleman et al. examined the status and characteristics of fiscal health expenditures in 195 countries/regions and predicted the future development trend of global health spending [7]. García et al. revealed the severity and causes of corruption in the global health system, noting that policymakers, research scholars, and funders need to clarify their responsibilities and treat corruption as an essential area of research [8]. Herath et al. combed the research literature of interprofessional education in global health care and analyzed the main differences and features of global health education for undergraduates and postgraduates in developed and developing countries [9]. Other scholars have reviewed different aspects of global health, such as experience and progress in the prevention and control of infectious diseases [10], lessons learned and theoretical basis for the implementation of global health security [11], and mechanisms for international institutions to participate in global health governance [12]. Most of the existing studies started from a single perspective or focused on a specific research area of global health, which lacks a comprehensive and systematic review of global health research.

Science is not an independent activity. Therefore, the progress of science often needs to summarize previous research results [13]. In thepast, thenumber of researchliterature on globalhealthhasmultiplied[14,15]. Because global health research involves multiple disciplines and scattered research themes, it has brought a lot of difficulties for global health researchers to grasp this emerging research area and find research hotspots. Due to the development of technologies such as data mining, information analysis, and graphic drawing, the organic combination of computer technology and traditional mathematical statistics has made it possible for visual analysis of scientific metrology. Scientometrics can intuitively show the information panorama of each discipline through the knowledge map, and explore research hotspots and emerging trends in a particular field [16]. It is widely used in the areas of environmental ecology [17], public health [18,19], business economics, artificial intelligence [20], education research, resource science [21], and medicine.

From a new perspective, this study will use scientometric to comprehensively and systematically review the research in the field of global health. Specific analysis methods such as text mining, word frequency analysis, co-word analysis, cluster analysis, co-citation analysis, and network analysis will be adopted in this research to answer the following questions: (1) What are the changes in international experts' and scholars' attention to global health? (2) Which scholars, research institutions, countries, or regions have outstanding influence and contribution to the development of global health research? (3) Which journals have a high impact in the area of global health research? (4) What is the status of scientific research cooperation across global, multi-institution, and different authors in global health? (5) What is the evolutionary context, research frontiers, hot topics, and future trends in global health research?
