https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7629-5453
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Abstract
This study utilizes LDA topic modeling to examine research trends related to COVID-19 within the field of social work, analyzing these trends through peer-reviewed articles from the Korea Citation Index database. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, a statistical method for discovering abstract topics within a collection of documents, is applied to categorize and summarize the thematic concentration of the literature. Five themes have emerged: healthcare service and digitalized methods, exploring mental health status, qualitative approaches to social service program responses to COVID-19, evaluation of care services, and public service and program responses to COVID-19. Key findings reveal that the Korean social work academia focused on digital-based non-face-to-face services, evaluating the adequacy of public social services, and analyzing mental health and caregiving services during the pandemic. These findings indicate a reassessment of social work practices in response to the pandemic, underscoring the need to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by varied national responses. Additionally, the application of Python and machine learning in this research has shown significant benefits for social work studies, enabling a deeper analysis of complex, big data and facilitating more informed decision-making.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Ethical considerations
This study used publicly available statistical data without direct human interaction, thus not requiring Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. Nonetheless, all analyses strictly adhered to ethical guidelines to ensure responsible data use.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
TaeJeong Park
TaeJeong Park, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Seoul Cyber University. Dr. Park is dedicated to advancing social service policies and research. Her scholarship focuses on critical issues such as community social services, social capital, human rights, and social problems related to rapid societal changes.