Background: Human trafficking is a crime against humanity. It is also a serious threat to global health and security. Globalization has made human trafficking an easier task for the criminal organizations. No data are available on the volume, research trends, and key players in this field. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the research activity and research trends on human trafficking. Methods: A bibliometric method was adopted. Literature published in academic journals indexed in Scopus database was retrieved. The study period was set from 2000 to 2017. Results: Two thousand forty-four documents were retrieved. The average number of authors per document was 1.9. Over one third (n = 771; 37.7%) of the retrieved documents were about sex trafficking, 616 (30.1%) were about labor trafficking/forced labor, 199 (9.7%) were about child trafficking, and 138 (6.8%) were about organ trafficking. One third (n = 707; 34.6%) of the documents were in health-related fields while 1526 (74.7%) were in social sciences and humanities. The USA ranked first (n = 735; 36.0%) regarding the number of published documents. Geographic distribution of the retrieved document showed that world regions with a high prevalence of human trafficking had the least research contribution. International research collaboration has a limited contribution to the retrieved literature. The Harvard University (USA) was the most active institution (n = 39; 1.9%). International Migration (n = 35; 1.7%) was the most active journal in publishing documents on HT. Documents published in Transplantation journal received the highest number of citations per document (25.5) and two of the most cited documents were about organ trafficking. Conclusion: There was an under-representation of health-related literature on human trafficking. Literature on sex trafficking dominated the field of human trafficking. Research networks and research collaboration between the source and destination countries is important. Future research plans need to focus on health issues and on exploited/trafficked laborers. © 2018 The Author(s).

Global health Bibliometrics Research analysis Human trafficking

literature review trend analysis globalization human trends Humanities research work Bibliometrics Biomedical Research medical research controlled study bibliographic database Databases, Bibliographic geographic distribution sex trafficking Humans human tissue sociology worker male bibliography female Scopus prevalence human trafficking database Article major clinical study trafficking global health publishing organ trafficking Child