Nursing Research on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals-A Bibliometric Analysis.
Christopher Holmberg, Linda Ahlstrom
PMID 40195286WHAT IT FOUND
A map of nursing literature shows almost no research on how nurses deliver care that is environmentally sustainable.
Most studies discuss policy or education, not patient outcomes, leaving clinicians without evidence on how to reduce waste or emissions in daily practice.
Key findings
01Only 131 nursing publications were found related to the SDGs between 2016 and 2023, a number far lower than in internal medicine or nutrition.
02The vast majority of these publications focused on Good Health and Well-Being, with very little attention to Clean Water or Climate Action.
03The authors did not read the full text of the papers, so the study maps titles and keywords but cannot assess the quality or specific content of the evidence.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study only looked at papers indexed as 'Nursing' in Web of Science, which may have missed relevant work published in general health or environmental journals. The authors did not read the full text of the 131 papers, so they could not judge the quality of the research or the specific details of the interventions described. The search terms were strict (requiring 'SDG', 'Agenda 2030', etc.), which likely excluded papers discussing sustainability or environmental health without using those specific policy labels. The country count for the US (174) appears higher than the total number of articles (131), indicating the metric counts author affiliations rather than unique articles, which can skew the view of where the research is actually coming from.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the low number of publications as proof that nurses are not doing sustainable work. The search only found papers that explicitly used the term 'SDG' or 'Agenda 2030', so much existing practice around waste reduction or energy saving may simply not have been written up with those specific keywords.