Department of Botany, Institute for Coastal and Marine Research (CMR), Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Department of Chemical Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria; Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Johannesburg, Doornfontein, 2028, South Africa.
Chemosphere. 2022 Dec;308(Pt 2):136371. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.136371. Epub 2022 Sep 8.
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that stay in the environment for a long time. To address the toxicity issues, global nations, including 53 African countries, ratified the Stockholm Convention to minimize or eliminate the production of 12 POPs known as the "Dirty Dozen". However, these Dirty Dozen Chemicals (DDCs) still exist in significant concentration in the African environment, prompting numerous research to investigate the level of their occurrences. Here, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to examine the publication trends in DDCs-related research in Africa using articles published between 1949 and 2021 from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. A total of 884 articles were published within the survey period, with a publication/author and author/publication ratio of 0.36 and 2.76, respectively. South Africa ranked first in terms of number of publications (n = 133, 15.05%), and total citations (n = 3115), followed by Egypt (n = 117), Nigeria (n = 77), USA (n = 40), and Ghana (n = 38). Research collaboration was relatively high (collaboration index = 2.88). The insignificant difference between the theoretical and observed Lotka's distribution indicates Lotka's law does not fit the DDC literature. An annual growth rate of 0.57% implies that a substantial increase of articles in years to come is not expected. More research programs should be established in other African countries to measure up to South Africa's supremacy. This is critical in order to provide a basis for effective compliance to the Stockholm Convention on POPs in Africa.
持久性有机污染物 (POPs) 是在环境中存在很长时间的有毒化学物质。为了解决毒性问题，包括 53 个非洲国家在内的全球各国批准了《斯德哥尔摩公约》，以尽量减少或消除 12 种被称为“肮脏十二”的 POPs 的生产。然而，这些肮脏的十二种化学品 (DDC) 仍然在非洲环境中以显著的浓度存在，促使人们进行了大量研究来调查它们的存在水平。在这里，我们使用 Web of Science 和 Scopus 数据库中 1949 年至 2021 年期间发表的文章，进行了文献计量分析，以检查非洲与 DDC 相关研究的出版趋势。在调查期间共发表了 884 篇文章，发表/作者和作者/出版物的比例分别为 0.36 和 2.76。南非在出版物数量 (n=133, 15.05%) 和总引用次数 (n=3115) 方面排名第一，其次是埃及 (n=117)、尼日利亚 (n=77)、美国 (n=40) 和加纳 (n=38)。研究合作相对较高 (合作指数 = 2.88)。理论和观察到的洛特卡分布之间的显著差异表明洛特卡定律不适用于 DDC 文献。每年 0.57%的增长率意味着未来几年文章数量不会大幅增加。应该在其他非洲国家建立更多的研究项目，以达到南非的领先地位。这对于为非洲遵守《关于持久性有机污染物的斯德哥尔摩公约》提供依据至关重要。
