A Bibliometric Study of Scientific Literature on Obesity Research in Web of Science Database (2008-2020): Evidence from the MENA Region

Obesity has increasingly become a health threat in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. This study aimed to investigate the scientific publications on obesity in the MENA countries during 2008-2020.

A longitudinal analysis of 13 years (2008-2020) of bibliographic data from obesity-related articles was performed. Web of Science core collection (WoS) was searched for bibliographic data. The bibliometric indicators including overall productivity and collaboration along with the prevalence of obesity and socioeco-nomic status were used to assess and compare the context of obesity research efforts in the MENA region.

The overall obesity-related articles of the MENA countries cumulated to 23680 publications. The MENA region accounted for a 6.5% global publication share in obesity research. Turkey contributed the high-est rate of total publications (n=6162) followed by Iran (n=5302) and Israel (n=2847). Iran and Turkey had the lowest rates of international collaborations. The overall obesity research was not significantly associated with socio-demographic index (SDI) measure (r=-0.26, P=0.27). No significant association was found between Gross National Income (GNI) per capita and the overall production of obesity research (r=0.41, P=0.08). Ad-ditionally, obesity research was not significantly associated with the prevalence of obesity in the countries (r=0.24, P=0.30).

This study observed an increased share of scientific productivity in the field of obesity from the MENA countries. Neither SDI, GNI per capita, nor obesity prevalence was not significantly associated with the overall productivity of the region.