Global publications on stigma between 1998–2018: A bibliometric analysis

•Several decades of studies have provided substantial documentation of stigma, while the full power and significance of stigma research remain obscured.•This study provided knowledge on stigma from a visualization and bibliometric perspective.•Scientific research on stigma still requires a widespread collaborative endeavor, both domestically and internationally. To describe the development process and structural relationships of scientific achievements on stigma over the past two decades and to provide insights for researchers and policy makers to drive policy decisions and identify future research needs. Quantitative analysis of publications was directly interpreted and graphed through Web of Science and ORIGIN 2017. The co-occurrence and collaboration analysis between authors, countries and keywords were conducted through VOSviewer. Keyword burst was detected through CiteSpace. The retrieved 2,799 publications showed a trend of increasing annual publications between 1998 and 2018. The United States made the greatest contribution to global publications regarding stigma. Four keyword clusters indicating research hotspot were identified through the default clustering method in VOSviewer. Meta-analysis and internalized stigma were detected as keyword bursts in recent years. The growth trend of publications indicated increased research interest in stigma, especially common stigma types, including HIV stigma and obesity stigma. Future research should focus on other types of stigma and should include more elaborate intervention programs, mechanism exploration, and research on internalized stigma. Scientific research on stigma requires an extensive collaborative endeavor, both domestically and internationally, among diverse researchers, institutions, and countries.