Abstract
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.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-718) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
According to the World Health Organization, micronutrient deficiencies and underweight problems are common in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR); (WHO/ EMRO 2012)
More than 94% of worldwide nutrition and dietetics documents were written in English and less than 6% were written by 12 other languages mainly French and German languages
Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal is one of the regional journals in the field of public health in which many Arab researchers had published in the field of nutrition; documents published in this journal were not counted because it is not indexed in Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science
Summary
According to the World Health Organization, micronutrient deficiencies and underweight problems are common in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR); (WHO/ EMRO 2012). Prevalent health conditions in Arab countries such as diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular diseases have been linked to nutritional habits in the EMR (Musaiger 2011). In the case of Arab countries with approximately 400 million population and huge resources, excellence in research is a must. Medical education, health services, political reform and awareness have become evident in most Arab countries. This should have been accompanied by increase in scientific research output. The objective of this study was to analyze the research activity in nutrition and dietetics in Arab countries using bibliometric approach. The results of the study will provide baseline data on the quantity and quality of research in nutrition and dietetics category and will help direct research in this field in the future
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
