Background Obesity is a serious worldwide
medical condition, considered by some researchers as one of the most serious
public health problems of the 21st century. The main objective of
this study was to assess the quantity and quality of obesity-related research
from Arab countries and compare it with that from non-Arab Middle Eastern
countries.
Methods Original
scientific articles or reviews published by Arab countries about obesity up
until 2011 were screened using the ISI Web of Science database. Research
activity was assessed by analyzing the annual research productivity, journals
names, citations, top 10 active institutions, and the contribution of each Arab
country to obesity research.
Results The
total number of original and review research articles published globally about
obesity was 110,167. The leading country in obesity research was United States
of America (42.47%). Turkey, Israel, and Iran were in the top 30 countries
while Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Egypt, and Kuwait ranked 39th,
43rd, and 47th, respectively. A total of 1,121 documents
about “obesity” were published by Arab countries, representing 1.0% of the
global research output, with 13,343 citations (average citation of 11.9 per
document) and an h-index of 44. The Arab countries’ research output was
very low until the mid-1990s and then increased steadily. Of the 1,121
documents, 107 (9.55%) were published in the Saudi Medical Journal. KSA,
with a total of 318 publications ranked first among Arab countries in research
quantity while Kuwait ranked first after adjustment based on population size.
King Saud University in KSA was the most productive institution with a total of
140 documents. Compared with other non-Arab Middle Eastern countries, the
research productivity from Arab countries was lower than that from Turkey,
higher than that from Iran, and close to that from Israel. However, the h-index
of documents about obesity published from Arab countries was lower than that of
Turkey and Israel, but slightly higher than that from Iran.
Conclusions The present data reveals a
good contribution by some Arab countries, particularly Arab gulf countries, to
obesity research. More efforts are needed by other Arab countries to bridge the
gap in this topic and to improve the quality of obesity-related research
originating from Arab countries.
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