A glance at one decade of water pollution research in Iranian environmental health journals
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(2020) 7:2
International Journal of Food Contamination
DATA ARTICLE
Open Access
A glance at one decade of water pollution research in Iranian environmental health journals Aram Tirgar1 , Zahra Aghalari2* , Mika Sillanpää3,4,5,6 and Hans-Uwe Dahms7,8
Abstract Background: Due to the importance of water, the negative effects of water pollution on human health and the lack of proper knowledge of the state of research in this regard, the purpose of this study was to analyse scientific publications on water pollution in Iranian journals of environmental health. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted using a scientometric method over a ten-year period (2008– 2017) on articles published in five specialised environmental health journals emphasising the issue of water pollution. Data were collected through a researcher-based checklist using the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) recommendations. Data processing was done using descriptive statistics and VOSviewer software. Results: A review of 1276 articles in specialised environmental health journals revealed that 33.7% of the articles were in the field of water. Physical and chemical factors in water were the main subjects of 21.4% of studies, and temperature and turbidity were the most important physical factors. Microbial agents in groundwater and surface water were the main subjects of 14.1% of the articles. The findings show that 55 of 430 articles related to water were written with contributions from 20 countries (including Iran), with the most contributions from researchers from Asia. Conclusions: Good conditions do not exist to investigate the status of articles on water pollution in specialised environmental health journals in Iran over a ten-year period. Health policymakers should therefore provide mechanisms to encourage national researchers, especially environmental health professionals, by setting national research priorities on quality and water pollution to conduct studies in this regard. Keywords: Water pollution, Environmental health, Articles, Journals, Scientometrics
Introduction Water accounts for two-thirds of human body weight. This indicates that water is a vital ingredient for human survival and attention to water pollution is important (Aghalari and Jafarian 2017; Dai etal. 2016). In contrast, contaminated water, in addition to compromising human health, has a * Correspondence: [email protected] 2 Faculty of Public Health, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
detrimental effect on the various aspects of human life, including social, economic and cultural (Satterthwaite 2016; Behailu etal. 2016). According to a report by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), about one-third of the world’s water is polluted. In this report, pollution is a factor damaging the chemical, physical and aesthetic properties of water (Komasi and Sharghi 2017). Since 2004, the
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