Abstract: Objective To analyze the topics, hotspots, and common methods in the academic dissertations of social medicine and health service management, so as to understand the graduate education of this major. Methods Bibliometric analysis was used to retrieve CNKI and Wanfang Database for the academic dissertations of social medicine and health service management from January 1, 2000 to November 20, 2022. VOSviewer was used to generate network visualization. Results A total of 7 884 dissertations were obtained, including 766 doctoral dissertations and 7 118 master dissertations. Research topics include hospital management and performance evaluation, equity of health resource allocation, primary medical services, job satisfaction of medical staff, patient satisfaction of medical treatment, and health management of special groups. In recent years, fairness of medical services, job satisfaction of medical staff, patient satisfaction of medical treatment and the elderly population are the research hotspots. The commonly used research methods in these dissertations include DEA, Delphi and SEM. Conclusions The topics and hotspots of the dissertations are closely related to background of social development and are characterized by interdisciplinarity. The commonly used research methods are in line with the theme of these dissertations, with evaluation, decision-making and prediction as the main functionality.

Key words: Academic dissertations, Social medicine and health service management, VOSviewer, Research hotspot, Research method