---
title: "Depression research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “depression” appeared in 1,263 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (844), economics (151) and information systems (125)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/depression
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/depression.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “depression” appeared in 1,263 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (844), economics (151) and information systems (125). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “depression”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/2.md)

Research on “depression” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “depression” appeared in 1,263 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (844), economics (151) and information systems (125).
- 147 of them were published in 2025, against 92 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Harvard University (12), IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (12) and King's College London (12).
- The journals publishing most of them were Social Science & Medicine (119), SSM - Population Health (44) and Computers in Human Behavior (36).
- The most-cited of them is “Support vector machine” (Machine Learning, 2019), with 1,196 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 64 | 60 | 69 | 115 | 111 | 89 | 80 | 91 | 99 | 66 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 7 | 9 | 13 | 15 | 14 | 19 | 18 | 23 | 17 | 16 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 15 | 12 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 21 | 18 | 13 | 15 | 7 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 1 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 4 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| All categories | 92 | 88 | 96 | 155 | 152 | 147 | 136 | 146 | 147 | 104 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 119 |
| 2 | [SSM - Population Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ssm-population-health.md) | 44 |
| 3 | [Computers in Human Behavior](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-in-human-behavior.md) | 36 |
| 4 | [International Journal for Equity in Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-for-equity-in-health.md) | 31 |
| 5 | [Health and Quality of Life Outcomes](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/health-and-quality-of-life-outcomes.md) | 27 |
| 6 | [Journal of Happiness Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-happiness-studies.md) | 22 |
| 7 | [Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/administration-and-policy-in-mental-health-and-mental-health-services-research.md) | 19 |
| 8 | [The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-journal-of-behavioral-health-services-research.md) | 17 |
| 9 | [International Journal of Mental Health Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-mental-health-systems.md) | 17 |
| 10 | [Economics & Human Biology](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economics-human-biology.md) | 10 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Harvard University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harvard-university.md) | 12 |
| 2 | [IZA - Institute of Labor Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/iza-institute-of-labor-economics.md) | 12 |
| 3 | [King's College London](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/king-s-college-london.md) | 12 |
| 4 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 11 |
| 5 | [The University of Melbourne](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/the-university-of-melbourne.md) | 11 |
| 6 | [University of Oxford](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-oxford.md) | 11 |
| 7 | [University of Toronto](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-toronto.md) | 10 |
| 8 | [Monash University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/monash-university.md) | 9 |
| 9 | [Columbia University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/columbia-university.md) | 8 |
| 10 | [Deakin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/deakin-university.md) | 8 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 167 |
| 2 | China | 107 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 76 |
| 4 | Australia | 39 |
| 5 | Germany | 35 |
| 6 | Canada | 29 |
| 7 | Spain | 23 |
| 8 | Italy | 21 |
| 9 | Hong Kong | 20 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 20 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | anxiety | 222 |
| 2 | [mental health](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mental-health.md) | 138 |
| 3 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 56 |
| 4 | [older adults](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/older-adults.md) | 51 |
| 5 | [gender differences](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/gender-differences.md) | 49 |
| 6 | psychological distress | 35 |
| 7 | life satisfaction | 31 |
| 8 | loneliness | 30 |
| 9 | post-traumatic stress disorder | 30 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,196 | 14.3 | [Support vector machine](https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-815739-8.00006-7) | [Machine Learning](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/machine-learning.md) | 2019-11-15 | Derek Pisner, David M. Schnyer |
| 2 | 1,179 | 10.2 | [Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.02.008) | [Research Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-policy.md) | 2017-03-13 | Katia Levecque, Frederik Anseel, Alain De Beuckelaer et al. |
| 3 | 1,026 | 9.8 | [Online social media fatigue and psychological wellbeing—A study of compulsive use, fear of missing out, fatigue, anxiety and depression](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.01.012) | [International Journal of Information Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-information-management.md) | 2018-02-22 | Amandeep Dhir, Yossiri Yossatorn, Puneet Kaur et al. |
| 4 | 359 | 5.4 | [Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Among Undergraduate Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic and their Use of Mental Health Services](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09552-y) | [Innovative Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/innovative-higher-education.md) | 2021-04-22 | Jungmin Lee, Hyun Ju Jeong, Sujin Kim |
| 5 | 333 | 4.8 | [Do job insecurity, anxiety and depression caused by the COVID-19 pandemic influence hotel employees’ self-rated task performance? The moderating role of employee resilience](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.102868) | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 2021-01-28 | Teresa Aguiar-Quintana, Thi Hong Hai Nguyen, Yasmina Araujo Cabrera et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Mental health and the labour market](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/mental-health-and-the-labour-market.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “depression”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/depression

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-depression,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “depression”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/depression}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).