One of the biggest public health issues facing the globe today is pancreatic cancer (PC). To serve as a guide for clinically identifying existing research hotspots and conducting related studies in the future, bibliometric and visualization analyses of the literature on risk factors and PC prevention were carried out in this work. Results of published research from 2004 to 2024 were retrieved using the Web of Science database as a search platform. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used for bibliometric and visual analysis. Based on the exclusion criteria, 868 articles in all were screened. Between 2004 and 2024, the quantity of articles published varied. Between 2017 and 2023, there was a consistent upward trend in the quantity of published literature. Cancer epidemiology biomarkers and prevention, cancers, and the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention were the 3 journals with the most publications. The 2 nations with the most publications are China and the United States. The 2 nations with the most publications are China and the United States. The top 3 most published universities are Harvard University, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Buzzwords include body mass index, obesity, diabetes, smoking, and exercise.