Sweileh Waleed M, Al-Jabi Samah W, Sawalha Ansam F, Zyoud Sa'ed H
Department of Pharmacology/Toxicology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.
Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.
Springerplus. 2014 Dec 10;3:718. doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-718. eCollection 2014.
Reducing nutrition-related health problems in Arab countries requires an understanding of the performance of Arab countries in the field of nutrition and dietetics research. Assessment of research activity from a particular country or region could be achieved through bibliometric analysis. This study was carried out to investigate research activity in "nutrition and dietetics" in Arab countries. Original and review articles published from Arab countries in "nutrition and dietetics" Web of Science category up until 2012 were retrieved and analyzed using the ISI Web of Science database. The total number of documents published in "nutrition and dietetics" category from Arab countries was 2062. This constitutes 1% of worldwide research activity in the field. Annual research productivity showed a significant increase after 2005. Approximately 60% of published documents originated from three Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. However, Kuwait has the highest research productivity per million inhabitants. Main research areas of published documents were in "Food Science/Technology" and "Chemistry" which constituted 75% of published documents compared with 25% for worldwide documents in nutrition and dietetics. A total of 329 (15.96%) nutrition - related diabetes or obesity or cancer documents were published from Arab countries compared with 21% for worldwide published documents. Interest in nutrition and dietetics research is relatively recent in Arab countries. Focus of nutrition research is mainly toward food technology and chemistry with lesser activity toward nutrition-related health research. International cooperation in nutrition research will definitely help Arab researchers in implementing nutrition research that will lead to better national policies regarding nutrition.
减少阿拉伯国家与营养相关的健康问题需要了解阿拉伯国家在营养与饮食学研究领域的表现。通过文献计量分析可以评估某个特定国家或地区的研究活动。本研究旨在调查阿拉伯国家在“营养与饮食学”方面的研究活动。利用ISI科学网数据库检索并分析了截至2012年阿拉伯国家在“营养与饮食学”科学网类别中发表的原创文章和综述文章。阿拉伯国家在“营养与饮食学”类别中发表的文献总数为2062篇。这占该领域全球研究活动的1%。2005年后年度研究产出显著增加。约60%已发表文献来自三个阿拉伯国家，特别是埃及、沙特阿拉伯王国和突尼斯。然而，科威特每百万居民的研究产出最高。已发表文献的主要研究领域是“食品科学/技术”和“化学”，占已发表文献的75%，而全球营养与饮食学文献中这一比例为25%。阿拉伯国家共发表了329篇（15.96%）与营养相关的糖尿病、肥胖或癌症文献，而全球已发表文献的这一比例为21%。阿拉伯国家对营养与饮食学研究的兴趣相对较新。营养研究的重点主要是食品技术和化学，而与营养相关的健康研究活动较少。营养研究方面的国际合作肯定会帮助阿拉伯研究人员开展营养研究，从而制定出更好的国家营养政策。
