Abstract
BackgroundScientific cooperation is one of the effective methods to access current knowledge and technologies and also to use successful experiences of researchers in developed countries by academicians living in developing countries. This study aimed to determine the level of international contribution in compilation of scientific articles in Iranian journals published in the field of environmental health engineering.MethodsThis descriptive and retrospective study was conducted within a 10-year period (2008–2017), in which all articles published in five specialized Iranian journals of environmental health engineering were reviewed using a researcher-made checklist. The information collected in the checklist included: the year of publication, number of issues and articles, information about the status of authors’ participation in terms of number of authors, sex, institutional affiliation, country, continents, and research centers. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as index of dispersion, measures of central tendency, and Chi-square and t tests were used to statistically analyze the data. Besides, VOSviewer software was used to visualize the data.ResultsThe review of 1276 articles published in 102 issues of the five journals of environmental health engineering in Iran showed that 184 articles were written with the participation of researchers from other countries. Most articles with the participation of international authors during the last decade were published in 2014. Chi-square test indicated a significant difference in the publication of these articles within 2014–2015 than other years (P = 0.001). Among the five journals, the best participation of international researchers was observed in J Environ Health Sci Engineer (168 articles, 91.3%). Considering the number of joint articles with Iran, the top continents were Asia, Europe, and Africa each with 117, 52, and 32 articles, respectively. India, Turkey, and Malaysia had the highest level of cooperation with Iranian researchers with 53, 16, and 14 articles, respectively. 637 authors contributed in 184 articles, of whom 469 (73.6%) were male and 121 (18.9%) were female. T test was used to compare the mean number of male and female authors in the articles with or without the participation of international researchers, which showed no significant difference.ConclusionInternational contribution of researchers in compilation of specialized environmental health articles was good. Given the low level of cooperation between researchers from developed European and American countries and their Iranian counterparts, it seems necessary to adopt different methods to attract more collaboration from researchers working in developed countries considering their significant role in health-related areas.
Highlights
Scientific cooperation is one of the effective methods to access current knowledge and technologies and to use successful experiences of researchers in developed countries by academicians living in developing countries
The extended scope of environmental health activities in the terms of water, air, sewage, food, waste, and other interdisciplinary subjects necessitates students, researchers, and professors to cooperate with researchers working in other sciences and other countries by conducting appropriate studies and in accordance with the needs of the community to improve the quality of health services in various fields [3, 4]
Most of the Persian articles were related to the Journal of Health and Environment (430 articles, 66.1%) and the largest number of English articles were related to the J Environ Health Sci Engineer (JEHSE) (522 articles, 83.3%)
Summary
Scientific cooperation is one of the effective methods to access current knowledge and technologies and to use successful experiences of researchers in developed countries by academicians living in developing countries. The extended scope of environmental health activities in the terms of water, air, sewage, food, waste, and other interdisciplinary subjects necessitates students, researchers, and professors to cooperate with researchers working in other sciences and other countries by conducting appropriate studies and in accordance with the needs of the community to improve the quality of health services in various fields [3, 4] The necessity of this issue has led to the fact that currently reputable journals of the field prefer to publish articles resulted from the collaborations of researchers from different countries [5]. It is expected that studies and articles in the field of environmental health be conducted with the participation of a wider range of researchers from various national and international centers
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