Institute of Biomedical and Environmental Health Research, School of Science and Sport, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, PA1 2BE, UK.
Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Technology, Akure, P.M.B. 704, Ondo state, Nigeria.
Environ Geochem Health. 2018 Feb;40(1):395-413. doi: 10.1007/s10653-017-9919-4. Epub 2017 Feb 24.
A multidisciplinary approach to research affords the opportunity of objectivity, creation of new knowledge and potentially a more generally acceptable solution to problems that informed the research in the first place. It increasingly features in national programmes supporting basic and applied research, but for over 40 years, has been the arena for many research teams in environmental geochemistry and health. This study explores the nature of multidisciplinary research in the earth and health sciences using a sample selected from co-authored articles reporting research on arsenic (As) in drinking water from 1979 to 2013. A total of 889 relevant articles were sourced using the online version of the science citation index-expanded (SCI-expanded). The articles were classified according to author affiliation and later by author discipline/research interests using the Revised Field of Science and Technology Frascati manual DSTI/EAS/STP/NESTI (2006) 19/FINAL and a decision algorithm. Few articles were published on the topic until 2000. More articles were published across all affiliations in the last 10 years of the review period (2004-2013) than in the first 10 years (1979-1988). Only 84 (~9%) articles fell within the "earth and health" only and "earth, health and other" categories when classification was undertaken by author affiliation alone. This suggests that level of collaboration between earth and health scientists in arsenic in drinking water research may be very low. By refining the classification further using author discipline/research interests, only 28 of the 84 articles appear to be co-authored by earth and health scientists alongside professionals in other fields. More than half of these 28 articles involved descriptive non-experimental, observational study designs, limited in direct causal hypotheses and mechanistic investigation. If collaborative research is to lead to the increased multidisciplinary research, early interaction should be encouraged between students from different disciplines. In order to achieve multidisciplinarity in practise, it is imperative that scientific communities and research agencies do more to encourage interaction and integration between researchers from different disciplines. This must develop from educational institutions seeing opportunities to improve graduate skills in an increasingly diverse research landscape.
采用多学科方法进行研究具有客观性、创造新知识的潜力，并且有可能为最初为研究提供信息的问题提供更普遍可接受的解决方案。它越来越多地成为支持基础和应用研究的国家计划的特色，但 40 多年来，它一直是环境地球化学和健康领域许多研究团队的活动领域。本研究使用从 1979 年至 2013 年关于饮用水中砷（As）的合作研究文章中选取的样本，探讨了地球和健康科学中多学科研究的性质。共使用在线版科学引文索引扩展版（SCI-expanded）获取了 889 篇相关文章。根据作者隶属关系对文章进行分类，然后根据作者学科/研究兴趣，使用修订后的科学技术领域弗拉斯卡蒂手册 DSTI/EAS/STP/NESTI（2006）19/FINAL 和决策算法进行分类。直到 2000 年，才有关于该主题的文章发表。在审查期的最后 10 年（2004-2013 年），与前 10 年（1979-1988 年）相比，所有隶属关系的文章数量都有所增加。仅当仅按作者隶属关系进行分类时，84 篇文章中的 84 篇（约 9%）属于“地球与健康”和“地球、健康与其他”类别。这表明，饮用水中砷的地球与健康科学家之间的合作水平可能非常低。通过进一步使用作者学科/研究兴趣细化分类，只有 84 篇文章中的 28 篇似乎是由地球与健康科学家与其他领域的专业人员共同撰写的。在这 28 篇文章中，超过一半的文章涉及描述性非实验、观察性研究设计，直接因果假设和机制研究有限。如果合作研究能够促进多学科研究，那么应该鼓励不同学科的学生之间尽早进行互动。为了在实践中实现多学科性，科学共同体和研究机构必须更加努力地鼓励不同学科的研究人员之间的互动和融合。这必须从教育机构看到机会，在日益多样化的研究环境中提高研究生的技能开始。
