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Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, Mohammadi-Nasrabadi F, Joulaei H, Mohsenpour M A. Mapping the Past Two Decades of Nutrition and Food Security in Iran: A Co-Word Network Analysis. JNFS 2024; 9 (4) :773-787
URL: http://jnfs.ssu.ac.ir/article-1-980-en.html
URL: http://jnfs.ssu.ac.ir/article-1-980-en.html
Parisa Keshani 
, Maryam Yaghtin , Hajar Sotudeh , Fatemeh Mohammadi-Nasrabadi , Hassan Joulaei , Mohammad Ali Mohsenpour *
, Maryam Yaghtin , Hajar Sotudeh , Fatemeh Mohammadi-Nasrabadi , Hassan Joulaei , Mohammad Ali Mohsenpour *
Department of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
Keywords: Nutritional sciences, Food security, Food safety, Food supply, Research map, Climate change
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| Abstract (HTML) (583 Views)
Introduction
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To model the publication growth, different regression models were checked. As observed for any well-established and yet growing scientific system, the field adhered to an exponential model (Figure 3). The exponential model can predict approximately 96% of the frequency of Iranian scientific articles by year (R2=0.9596). Moreover, the annual growth rate was 22.33% (exponent=0.2233), which was almost similar to the average growth rate calculated using Formula 1.
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Full-Text: (63 Views)
Mapping the Past Two Decades of Nutrition and Food Security in Iran: A
Co-Word Network Analysis
Parisa Keshani; MPH, PhD1, Maryam Yaghtin; PhD2, Hajar Sotudeh; PhD3, Fatemeh Mohammadi-Nasrabadi; PhD4, Hassan Joulaei; MPH, PhD1 & Mohammad Ali Mohsenpour; MPH, PhD candidate*5,6,1
Co-Word Network Analysis
Parisa Keshani; MPH, PhD1, Maryam Yaghtin; PhD2, Hajar Sotudeh; PhD3, Fatemeh Mohammadi-Nasrabadi; PhD4, Hassan Joulaei; MPH, PhD1 & Mohammad Ali Mohsenpour; MPH, PhD candidate*5,6,1
1 Health Policy Research Center, Institute of Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; 2 Department of Scientometrics, Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), Shiraz, Iran; 3 Department of Knowledge & Information Sciences, School of Education & Psychology, Eram Campus, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran; 4 Research Department of Food and Nutrition Policy and Planning, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Instituted, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 5 Student Research Committee, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; 6 Department of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
| ARTICLE INFO | ABSTRACT | |
| REVIEW ARTICLE | Background: Food security in communities can prevent health complications, so investigators have made efforts to find its related factors through various fields. This study aims to draw a road map for nutrition and food security research in Iran. Methods: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Islamic World Citation Center were searched for eligible publications in nutrition and food security related to Iran for the two decades from 2001 to 2020. Content analysis was done by a co-word network technique using VOSviewer software. Results: Finally, 28,995 scientific publications among 50,444 search results were eligible to include in this study. The research map was drawn using 403,262 keywords obtained from the title and abstract of the papers. A 23.53% growth rate of publications was seen. Iranian articles were mainly published in scientific journals under 10 subject categories. The highly repeated keywords of "treatment", "plant", "age", "risk", and "consumption" were in publications. Moreover, the articles were categorized into thematic clusters of "environmental and climate change", "health ", "food industry and food safety", and "agriculture and water resources management" which were related to nutrition and food security. An increasing trend was observed in the number of publications during the past two decades in Iran. Conclusion: The relation of clinical nutrition, malnutrition, diet, and in recent years, food production and climate change with food security have been extensively studied by Iranian researchers. However, they have neglected studies on public health and policy in food and nutrition security, which reveals their dominant clinical or agricultural approach. | |
| Article history: Received: 6 Oct 2023 Revised: 10 Dec 2023 Accepted: 21 Dec 2023 |
||
| *Corresponding author: mohsenpourma@sums.ac.ir School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Razi Blvd, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Postal code: 7153675500 Tel: +98 9173019134 |
||
| Keywords: Nutritional sciences; Food security; Food safety; Food supply; Research map; Climate change |
Introduction
Improving nutrition can be considered a cost-effective approach for dealing with many social, environmental, and economic challenges that we face today around the world (Chen et al., 2019, Ohlhorst et al., 2013). Among these challenges, increasing food security, defined as having access to a balanced and nutritious diet for consumption of the required amount of various types of nutrients to achieve a healthy life (Joulaei et al., 2023), plays an essential role in the development of societies, so that the :union: Nations (UN) has identified it as one of the Millennium Development Goals (Behzadifar et al., 2016). Basically, maintaining local and global food security calls for an affordable supply of wholesome, secure, and sustainable foods (Fleischhacker et al., 2017). Through the assistance of the national defense forces, adequate nutrition is linked to long-term national security (Fleischhacker et al., 2017).
As a serious global public health concern, food insecurity has attracted the attention of health professionals and policymakers for the past two decades (Behzadifar et al., 2016). It affects more than 852 million people worldwide, of whom 9 million reside in developed countries and the rest in developing ones (Behzadifar et al., 2016). Moreover, food insecurity and chronic diseases have bidirectional relations, meaning that food insecurity can cause chronic diseases (Nagata et al., 2019), and chronic diseases can make food insecurity more prevalent (Jih et al., 2018). Therefore, as the main threat to both individual and public health, it creates a burden on nations’ health economics, as shown by the difference in yearly costs of food-secure and insecure individuals (e.g. $5527.06 for medicate and $1826.40 for beneficiaries from other health insurances) (Berkowitz et al., 2018). Improving food security will significantly reduce healthcare costs and increase economic output (Finkelstein et al., 2009). In 2008, it was projected that overweight and obesity-related medical expenses in the United States cost $147 billion annually (Finkelstein et al., 2009). Furthermore, the indirect (non-medical) costs associated with absenteeism, disability, premature mortality, workers’ compensation, and being at work despite illness were estimated (Trogdon et al., 2008). The role of food supply and food environment in nutrition and health among populations has become more evident from recent food and nutrition research. For instance, the 2014 EU Foresight Study on Food and Health proposed moving towards a sustainable food system that produces safe, sufficient, affordable, and healthy food (Fleischhacker et al., 2017).
According to the Millennium Declaration and in line with the Millennium Development Goals, policies and programs need to be designed, implemented, monitored, and periodically evaluated to fight poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and gender discrimination. However, evaluating the impact of food and nutrition programs, considering their multifactorial nature, is still a challenge for researchers and health professionals, especially when it comes to measuring and addressing food insecurity (Mohammadi Nasrabadi et al., 2014).
As a matter of fact, programs and policies in the health sector should be based on the robust evidence generated by researchers and experts, although other criteria should be considered by policy-makers (Rivera Dommarco et al., 2019). However, there are other reasons why scientific evidence is often disregarded, including lack of knowledge or a dearth of information, lack of contact between policymakers and researchers when formulating policies, and other socioeconomic and political barriers (Rivera Dommarco et al., 2019). To devising sound policies to confront food and nutrition insecurity, authorities need to develop road maps and strategic research agendas to address knowledge gaps.
Iran’s investment in health care increased up to 8.9% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2015; however, its investment in research remains restricted (around 0.6% of its GDP) (Mansoori et al., 2018). Despite limited financial support and the significant increase in the number of health research publications in the international bibliographic databases during the past three decades, Iran’s research activities in health are believed to not line up well with the country’s disease burden and the population’s health needs (Mansoori et al., 2018). A key problem might lie in the absence of a research map to serve researchers and policymakers in making evidence-informed policies (Mansoori et al., 2018).
Human nutrition research requires approaches that incorporate traditional health-related fields, such as agricultural science, biochemistry, dietetics, dentistry, endocrinology, food technology, genetics, medicine, microbiology, molecular biology, physiology, and psychology (Fleischhacker et al., 2017). These approaches consist of categories less traditionally engaged in health-related research, including but not limited to behavioral economics, law, mathematics, physics, political science, regional and urban planning, and sociology (Fleischhacker et al., 2017). One of the foremost health problems in Iran is food insecurity, to the extent that about half of Iranians are reported to be struggling with food insecurity (Daneshi-Maskooni et al., 2017). Greater investments in food insecurity research can accelerate progress in improving and maintaining health as well as reducing illness, mortality, and the economic burden associated with nutrition-related diseases and disorders (Meyer et al., 2013). Thus, the National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute (NNFTRI) conducted a study to find Iran’s nutrition and food security situation and establish a road map until 2021 (Damari et al., 2018).
During the past few years, various political and environmental changes have exacerbated food insecurity. Among environmental factors, hydrological drought has impacted livestock, population growth, and agricultural products which intensifies food insecurity in the affected region (Hameed et al., 2020). Political concerns like the ongoing installation and enforcement of US sanctions against Iran have also reduced Iranians’ buying power and, as a result, exacerbated food shortages. Therefore, this circumstance may have the effect of increasing chronic problems (Hejazi and Emamgholipour, 2022). Besides, Iran is rapidly moving towards an aging population (Mehri et al., 2020), which can lead to an increment in social costs, age-related health issues, and finally, food insecurity with the economic burden on the healthcare system (Wang and Bishop, 2019).
Therefore, to control food insecurity and its consequences, policymakers, and managers in Iran should act based on appropriate strategic plans, established on scientific evidence and field research, not only in the design and implementation phases but also when monitored and evaluated in terms of their effectiveness to achieve the goals (Brown et al., 2019). Considering the significance of food insecurity in terms of its bidirectional relationship with chronic diseases, its effect on social, demographic, political, and economic conditions, and the presence of a proposed evidence-based roadmap for food insecurity until 2021, this study aims to draw nutrition and food security research map from 2001 to 2020 to assess the nutrition research topics in Iran and to examine the thematic gaps in food security studies.
Materials and methods
Study design
Using a content analysis method with a quantitative approach, the present study mapped the nutrition and food security research of Iran in the time span from 2001 to 2020. The contents were analyzed using co-occurrence of keywords technique, a quantitative technique widely applied to discover the structures and structural changes of a scientific field, communicating scientific research fields, and scientific mapping outputs (Hu et al., 2013). The technique measures the co-occurrence of keywords to show the network of a scientific field’s concepts. The co-occurrence is believed to reflect the semantic relationship between two terms and thereby reveal the topics in the scientific outputs of a research field (Assefa and Rorissa, 2013).
Ethical considerations
The proposal of the present study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the ethics committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.SUMS.REC.1398.1262). This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
Scope of the study
The scope for the current research consisted of all scientific articles, including original works and review articles, and policy reports, but not materials, such as letter-to-editor, conference abstracts, etc., in the field of food security in Iran. Since it is not possible to identify all the published materials in scientometric research, a cross-section of time is selected for study in reliable and field-related databases that cover most works of a field. Published journal articles indexed in five electronic databases of Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) from 2001 to 2020, were selected which discussed food security in Iran. Identifying the subject of the articles was done during the following process by providing a search query and evaluation techniques. To get a comprehensive view of the investigated field, all eligible published materials retrieved from the databases were analyzed, and sampling was not done on them.
Study procedure
Making a collection of documents
Development of the search strategy: To search the electronic databases, a search query was developed with the consultation of experts in the field. During the brainstorming sessions, with the field expert panel and scientometric experts, an effort was made to identify all the important and fundamental MeSH and non-MeSH keywords and their combinations that cover the field of food security in Iran through 5 categories (both in English and Persian): “food security” category including words directly related to food security, “policy” including words related to food policies, food system, and economic, “Health” including words related to food, nutrition, and health ,and diseases, “Environment” such as climate change, global warming, water and soil, “Availability”, including distribution, transportation, food import, and export.
Regarding the fact that all the aforementioned databases were not equipped with semantic tools, such as a thesaurus for searching, an effort was made to identify synonyms and related words when possible. To avoid retrieving less irrelevant documents whilst finding the highest possible relevant items, searching keywords was limited to title, abstract, and keywords of published material, as they most represented the text. Unique search strategies and search queries in English and Persian were adopted based on the databases of interest requirements.
Search and recording documents: The above-mentioned databases were searched using the predefined search query on 06/23/2020, which was restricted from 2001 to 2020. The search was done for English publications in WoS, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase. Moreover, Persian language publications were retrieved by searching ISC database. Bibliographic information and abstracts of articles retrieved from each database were stored in an Excel file. Any documents that were not original research, review articles (narrative review, systematic review, meta-analysis), or policy reports were omitted during the first screening.
Removal of duplicate records: In this step, after retrieving the required records from the 5 mentioned databases, considering DOI and title, duplicate records were identified and removed. The title and abstract of the articles, as well as the WoS category of the journals that publish these articles, were downloaded from WoS and were prepared for further analysis in Excel.
Content analysis
To map the field of nutrition and food security, the co-word network of the field was drawn using VOSviewer software version 16.6.1. The software is widely used for visualizing and exploring bibliographic maps of all types of bibliometric networks, including citation link networks, scientific co-authorship, and cognate relationships between scientific terms and expressions (Van Eck and Waltman, 2011). It is used as a good quality tool to map science (Cobo et al., 2011, Van Eck and Waltman, 2010) in various studies (Bello et al., 2021). The co-word network analyses were performed at the title and abstract level, leading to the identification of the main clusters and their main keywords.
Pre-processing: VoSViewer software automatically performs linguistic pre-processing before analysis. However, the analysis of the keywords of the obtained clusters showed that it failed to correctly perform pre-processing in some cases. Thus, there was a need for more pre-processing to control and homogenize vocabulary. Moreover, it was necessary to prevent the scattering of related words or synonyms under different written forms. For this purpose, a thesaurus was created which, in addition to determining synonyms and related words, determined the words that needed linguistic pre-processing as well as general words without thematic load such as score, group, and case study that should be removed from the clusters. Visualizing the map was repeated several times, and in the process, the thesaurus was completed. The expert panel confirmed the correctness of the words in the field in several stages.
Finally, 403,262 keywords for the title and abstract and 240 keywords for the WoS subject categories were obtained, and these keywords were used to draw the scientific map of this field. These maps contain some nodes with different sizes. The nodes’ size showed the scientific map of the knowledge contained in each concept. Hence, small nodes indicated the shortage of investigations on those concepts. Besides, the color indicated different clusters of concepts. In this map, the distance and proximity of keywords showed how much the concepts were related to each other. In other words, the connection lines among the keywords indicated that these keywords were used with each other in different works, and as a result, there was more thematic similarity among them.
Visualizing map of the WoS subject categories and their weight: In the next step, WoS categories of the journals publishing the scientific articles for the field of food security were analyzed as in the previous step. For document frequency, the threshold of at least 20 documents was applied. As the analyses were conducted for titles and abstracts, the term frequency within documents was unimportant to the writers. Therefore, the binary counting method was used instead of the full counting method to indicate the occurrence or non-occurrence of words in the document. This led to the identification of 128 out of 240 keywords. Thus, by calculating the relevance score for each keyword, 60% of the keywords (including 77 keywords) with the highest relevance score (as applied in previous studies) (Bello et al., 2021, Mohammadi Nasrabadi et al., 2018) were included in the analysis.
Identification of the most frequent words and comparison in different years: In this stage, based on the frequency index of VoSViewer, the most frequently used words of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security during the years of interest were identified. The top 10 words were used in order to identify the most used words for each time period.
Drawing the scientific map and thematic clusters: In this step, the scientific map of this area was drawn like the WoS category. The result of this process was identifying thematic clusters of words and finally extracting the main research trends. This section led to the analysis of 3969 out of 403262 keywords, in which 60% of the keywords (2381 keywords) with the highest relevance score were included in the analysis.
Repetition of the previous step in five-year intervals: In this step, the drawing of the scientific map and subject clusters was repeated for 5-year intervals to determine and compare the evolution of the scientific map of this field in-year interval.
Results
The search results led to 50444 publications from 4 databases of WoS, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase, and 34419 from ISC until June 2020. After the removal of 18,943 duplicated and 34419 unrelated articles by screening the titles, and 2506 articles with no abstracts available, 28995 scientific articles were extracted from the databases.
Publication trend
Figure 1 shows the frequency of Iranian publications in the field of food security by year. Among the total number of articles retrieved, the highest number of documents (n=3990) was related to 2019, and the lowest number of documents (n=72) was published in 2001. The frequency of publications in the 20-year time span showed an increasing trend. The observed decreased frequency of publication was in terms of conducting the search in the middle of 2020.
As a serious global public health concern, food insecurity has attracted the attention of health professionals and policymakers for the past two decades (Behzadifar et al., 2016). It affects more than 852 million people worldwide, of whom 9 million reside in developed countries and the rest in developing ones (Behzadifar et al., 2016). Moreover, food insecurity and chronic diseases have bidirectional relations, meaning that food insecurity can cause chronic diseases (Nagata et al., 2019), and chronic diseases can make food insecurity more prevalent (Jih et al., 2018). Therefore, as the main threat to both individual and public health, it creates a burden on nations’ health economics, as shown by the difference in yearly costs of food-secure and insecure individuals (e.g. $5527.06 for medicate and $1826.40 for beneficiaries from other health insurances) (Berkowitz et al., 2018). Improving food security will significantly reduce healthcare costs and increase economic output (Finkelstein et al., 2009). In 2008, it was projected that overweight and obesity-related medical expenses in the United States cost $147 billion annually (Finkelstein et al., 2009). Furthermore, the indirect (non-medical) costs associated with absenteeism, disability, premature mortality, workers’ compensation, and being at work despite illness were estimated (Trogdon et al., 2008). The role of food supply and food environment in nutrition and health among populations has become more evident from recent food and nutrition research. For instance, the 2014 EU Foresight Study on Food and Health proposed moving towards a sustainable food system that produces safe, sufficient, affordable, and healthy food (Fleischhacker et al., 2017).
According to the Millennium Declaration and in line with the Millennium Development Goals, policies and programs need to be designed, implemented, monitored, and periodically evaluated to fight poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and gender discrimination. However, evaluating the impact of food and nutrition programs, considering their multifactorial nature, is still a challenge for researchers and health professionals, especially when it comes to measuring and addressing food insecurity (Mohammadi Nasrabadi et al., 2014).
As a matter of fact, programs and policies in the health sector should be based on the robust evidence generated by researchers and experts, although other criteria should be considered by policy-makers (Rivera Dommarco et al., 2019). However, there are other reasons why scientific evidence is often disregarded, including lack of knowledge or a dearth of information, lack of contact between policymakers and researchers when formulating policies, and other socioeconomic and political barriers (Rivera Dommarco et al., 2019). To devising sound policies to confront food and nutrition insecurity, authorities need to develop road maps and strategic research agendas to address knowledge gaps.
Iran’s investment in health care increased up to 8.9% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2015; however, its investment in research remains restricted (around 0.6% of its GDP) (Mansoori et al., 2018). Despite limited financial support and the significant increase in the number of health research publications in the international bibliographic databases during the past three decades, Iran’s research activities in health are believed to not line up well with the country’s disease burden and the population’s health needs (Mansoori et al., 2018). A key problem might lie in the absence of a research map to serve researchers and policymakers in making evidence-informed policies (Mansoori et al., 2018).
Human nutrition research requires approaches that incorporate traditional health-related fields, such as agricultural science, biochemistry, dietetics, dentistry, endocrinology, food technology, genetics, medicine, microbiology, molecular biology, physiology, and psychology (Fleischhacker et al., 2017). These approaches consist of categories less traditionally engaged in health-related research, including but not limited to behavioral economics, law, mathematics, physics, political science, regional and urban planning, and sociology (Fleischhacker et al., 2017). One of the foremost health problems in Iran is food insecurity, to the extent that about half of Iranians are reported to be struggling with food insecurity (Daneshi-Maskooni et al., 2017). Greater investments in food insecurity research can accelerate progress in improving and maintaining health as well as reducing illness, mortality, and the economic burden associated with nutrition-related diseases and disorders (Meyer et al., 2013). Thus, the National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute (NNFTRI) conducted a study to find Iran’s nutrition and food security situation and establish a road map until 2021 (Damari et al., 2018).
During the past few years, various political and environmental changes have exacerbated food insecurity. Among environmental factors, hydrological drought has impacted livestock, population growth, and agricultural products which intensifies food insecurity in the affected region (Hameed et al., 2020). Political concerns like the ongoing installation and enforcement of US sanctions against Iran have also reduced Iranians’ buying power and, as a result, exacerbated food shortages. Therefore, this circumstance may have the effect of increasing chronic problems (Hejazi and Emamgholipour, 2022). Besides, Iran is rapidly moving towards an aging population (Mehri et al., 2020), which can lead to an increment in social costs, age-related health issues, and finally, food insecurity with the economic burden on the healthcare system (Wang and Bishop, 2019).
Therefore, to control food insecurity and its consequences, policymakers, and managers in Iran should act based on appropriate strategic plans, established on scientific evidence and field research, not only in the design and implementation phases but also when monitored and evaluated in terms of their effectiveness to achieve the goals (Brown et al., 2019). Considering the significance of food insecurity in terms of its bidirectional relationship with chronic diseases, its effect on social, demographic, political, and economic conditions, and the presence of a proposed evidence-based roadmap for food insecurity until 2021, this study aims to draw nutrition and food security research map from 2001 to 2020 to assess the nutrition research topics in Iran and to examine the thematic gaps in food security studies.
Materials and methods
Study design
Using a content analysis method with a quantitative approach, the present study mapped the nutrition and food security research of Iran in the time span from 2001 to 2020. The contents were analyzed using co-occurrence of keywords technique, a quantitative technique widely applied to discover the structures and structural changes of a scientific field, communicating scientific research fields, and scientific mapping outputs (Hu et al., 2013). The technique measures the co-occurrence of keywords to show the network of a scientific field’s concepts. The co-occurrence is believed to reflect the semantic relationship between two terms and thereby reveal the topics in the scientific outputs of a research field (Assefa and Rorissa, 2013).
Ethical considerations
The proposal of the present study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the ethics committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.SUMS.REC.1398.1262). This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
Scope of the study
The scope for the current research consisted of all scientific articles, including original works and review articles, and policy reports, but not materials, such as letter-to-editor, conference abstracts, etc., in the field of food security in Iran. Since it is not possible to identify all the published materials in scientometric research, a cross-section of time is selected for study in reliable and field-related databases that cover most works of a field. Published journal articles indexed in five electronic databases of Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) from 2001 to 2020, were selected which discussed food security in Iran. Identifying the subject of the articles was done during the following process by providing a search query and evaluation techniques. To get a comprehensive view of the investigated field, all eligible published materials retrieved from the databases were analyzed, and sampling was not done on them.
Study procedure
Making a collection of documents
Development of the search strategy: To search the electronic databases, a search query was developed with the consultation of experts in the field. During the brainstorming sessions, with the field expert panel and scientometric experts, an effort was made to identify all the important and fundamental MeSH and non-MeSH keywords and their combinations that cover the field of food security in Iran through 5 categories (both in English and Persian): “food security” category including words directly related to food security, “policy” including words related to food policies, food system, and economic, “Health” including words related to food, nutrition, and health ,and diseases, “Environment” such as climate change, global warming, water and soil, “Availability”, including distribution, transportation, food import, and export.
Regarding the fact that all the aforementioned databases were not equipped with semantic tools, such as a thesaurus for searching, an effort was made to identify synonyms and related words when possible. To avoid retrieving less irrelevant documents whilst finding the highest possible relevant items, searching keywords was limited to title, abstract, and keywords of published material, as they most represented the text. Unique search strategies and search queries in English and Persian were adopted based on the databases of interest requirements.
Search and recording documents: The above-mentioned databases were searched using the predefined search query on 06/23/2020, which was restricted from 2001 to 2020. The search was done for English publications in WoS, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase. Moreover, Persian language publications were retrieved by searching ISC database. Bibliographic information and abstracts of articles retrieved from each database were stored in an Excel file. Any documents that were not original research, review articles (narrative review, systematic review, meta-analysis), or policy reports were omitted during the first screening.
Removal of duplicate records: In this step, after retrieving the required records from the 5 mentioned databases, considering DOI and title, duplicate records were identified and removed. The title and abstract of the articles, as well as the WoS category of the journals that publish these articles, were downloaded from WoS and were prepared for further analysis in Excel.
Content analysis
To map the field of nutrition and food security, the co-word network of the field was drawn using VOSviewer software version 16.6.1. The software is widely used for visualizing and exploring bibliographic maps of all types of bibliometric networks, including citation link networks, scientific co-authorship, and cognate relationships between scientific terms and expressions (Van Eck and Waltman, 2011). It is used as a good quality tool to map science (Cobo et al., 2011, Van Eck and Waltman, 2010) in various studies (Bello et al., 2021). The co-word network analyses were performed at the title and abstract level, leading to the identification of the main clusters and their main keywords.
Pre-processing: VoSViewer software automatically performs linguistic pre-processing before analysis. However, the analysis of the keywords of the obtained clusters showed that it failed to correctly perform pre-processing in some cases. Thus, there was a need for more pre-processing to control and homogenize vocabulary. Moreover, it was necessary to prevent the scattering of related words or synonyms under different written forms. For this purpose, a thesaurus was created which, in addition to determining synonyms and related words, determined the words that needed linguistic pre-processing as well as general words without thematic load such as score, group, and case study that should be removed from the clusters. Visualizing the map was repeated several times, and in the process, the thesaurus was completed. The expert panel confirmed the correctness of the words in the field in several stages.
Finally, 403,262 keywords for the title and abstract and 240 keywords for the WoS subject categories were obtained, and these keywords were used to draw the scientific map of this field. These maps contain some nodes with different sizes. The nodes’ size showed the scientific map of the knowledge contained in each concept. Hence, small nodes indicated the shortage of investigations on those concepts. Besides, the color indicated different clusters of concepts. In this map, the distance and proximity of keywords showed how much the concepts were related to each other. In other words, the connection lines among the keywords indicated that these keywords were used with each other in different works, and as a result, there was more thematic similarity among them.
Visualizing map of the WoS subject categories and their weight: In the next step, WoS categories of the journals publishing the scientific articles for the field of food security were analyzed as in the previous step. For document frequency, the threshold of at least 20 documents was applied. As the analyses were conducted for titles and abstracts, the term frequency within documents was unimportant to the writers. Therefore, the binary counting method was used instead of the full counting method to indicate the occurrence or non-occurrence of words in the document. This led to the identification of 128 out of 240 keywords. Thus, by calculating the relevance score for each keyword, 60% of the keywords (including 77 keywords) with the highest relevance score (as applied in previous studies) (Bello et al., 2021, Mohammadi Nasrabadi et al., 2018) were included in the analysis.
Identification of the most frequent words and comparison in different years: In this stage, based on the frequency index of VoSViewer, the most frequently used words of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security during the years of interest were identified. The top 10 words were used in order to identify the most used words for each time period.
Drawing the scientific map and thematic clusters: In this step, the scientific map of this area was drawn like the WoS category. The result of this process was identifying thematic clusters of words and finally extracting the main research trends. This section led to the analysis of 3969 out of 403262 keywords, in which 60% of the keywords (2381 keywords) with the highest relevance score were included in the analysis.
Repetition of the previous step in five-year intervals: In this step, the drawing of the scientific map and subject clusters was repeated for 5-year intervals to determine and compare the evolution of the scientific map of this field in-year interval.
Results
The search results led to 50444 publications from 4 databases of WoS, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase, and 34419 from ISC until June 2020. After the removal of 18,943 duplicated and 34419 unrelated articles by screening the titles, and 2506 articles with no abstracts available, 28995 scientific articles were extracted from the databases.
Publication trend
Figure 1 shows the frequency of Iranian publications in the field of food security by year. Among the total number of articles retrieved, the highest number of documents (n=3990) was related to 2019, and the lowest number of documents (n=72) was published in 2001. The frequency of publications in the 20-year time span showed an increasing trend. The observed decreased frequency of publication was in terms of conducting the search in the middle of 2020.
To calculate the growth rate of publications, two types of analysis were performed. First, point-to-point growth rate analysis is considered, which is shown in Figure 2. The growth rate varied ranging from 3.97% in 2014 to 55.65% in 2007. Second, in order to calculate the total average growth rate from 2001 to 2019, Formula 1 was used. Thus, the average growth rate of publications in a 20-year time span was 23.53%.
Formula 1: Growth rate=[(frequency of published article in 2019/frequency of published article in 2001)1/timespan-1]*100
Formula 1: Growth rate=[(frequency of published article in 2019/frequency of published article in 2001)1/timespan-1]*100
To model the publication growth, different regression models were checked. As observed for any well-established and yet growing scientific system, the field adhered to an exponential model (Figure 3). The exponential model can predict approximately 96% of the frequency of Iranian scientific articles by year (R2=0.9596). Moreover, the annual growth rate was 22.33% (exponent=0.2233), which was almost similar to the average growth rate calculated using Formula 1.
The thematic categories and their weight in Iranian publications in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020
Table 1 summarizes the subject categories of the journals that have published Iranian articles in food security field and their weights. According to the results, the journals covered 10 subject categories, with agriculture, nutrition and dietetics, environmental and occupational health having the most weight, and hospitality, polymer, and thermodynamics having the least weight.
Figure 4 shows a map of the subject categories of Iranian scientific journals in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020. As it is shown, the subjects of nutrition and dietetics, and entomology were the most correlated, and the subjects of management, thermodynamics, and hospitality were the least correlated.
Table 1 summarizes the subject categories of the journals that have published Iranian articles in food security field and their weights. According to the results, the journals covered 10 subject categories, with agriculture, nutrition and dietetics, environmental and occupational health having the most weight, and hospitality, polymer, and thermodynamics having the least weight.
Figure 4 shows a map of the subject categories of Iranian scientific journals in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020. As it is shown, the subjects of nutrition and dietetics, and entomology were the most correlated, and the subjects of management, thermodynamics, and hospitality were the least correlated.
| Table 1. Thematic disciplines of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security during 2001–2020. | |
| Journal scope | Weight |
| Agriculture | 793 |
| Nutrition and dietetics | 670 |
| Environmental and occupational health | 553 |
| Management | 408 |
| Plant | 379 |
| Entomology | 367 |
| Fishery | 137 |
| Thermodynamics | 107 |
| Polymer | 80 |
| Hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism | 20 |
The keywords of Iranian publications in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020
The content analysis of the articles based on the keywords used in 28,995 published documents in the field of food security by Iranian authors led to the finding of 403262 unique keywords. The keywords with the highest frequency (> 1500) are listed in Table 2. The most widely used keywords in the field of food security by Iranian authors in the time span from 2001 to 2020 were treatment, plant, age, risk, and consumption, and were repeated 3411, 2920, 2798, 2757, and 2273 times, respectively.
Subject areas and co-words networks of Iranian publications in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020
Following the identification and analysis of the co-words network, 4 thematic clusters were identified. The clusters are shown in Table 3. Each cluster is composed of various concepts. The subject area of each cluster was specified based on the words in each cluster.
The content analysis of the articles based on the keywords used in 28,995 published documents in the field of food security by Iranian authors led to the finding of 403262 unique keywords. The keywords with the highest frequency (> 1500) are listed in Table 2. The most widely used keywords in the field of food security by Iranian authors in the time span from 2001 to 2020 were treatment, plant, age, risk, and consumption, and were repeated 3411, 2920, 2798, 2757, and 2273 times, respectively.
Subject areas and co-words networks of Iranian publications in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020
Following the identification and analysis of the co-words network, 4 thematic clusters were identified. The clusters are shown in Table 3. Each cluster is composed of various concepts. The subject area of each cluster was specified based on the words in each cluster.
| Table 2. The most repeated keywords in Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security during 2001–2020. | |
| Keyword | Frequency |
| Treatment | 3411 |
| Plant | 2920 |
| Age | 2798 |
| Risk | 2757 |
| Consumption | 2273 |
| Patient | 2266 |
| Climate change | 2157 |
| Efficiency | 2156 |
| Disease | 1700 |
| Prevalence | 1690 |
| Diet | 1660 |
| Cost | 1602 |
| Table 3. Thematic clusters based on the co-words of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security during 2001–2020. | ||
| Cluster | Subject area | Co-words |
| 1 | Environmental and climate change factors | Agricultural study, climate change, cost, efficiency, industry, resource, scenario, sustainability, … |
| 2 | Health-related factors and food security | Age, child, consumption, diet, dietary intake, disease, intake, patient, prevalence, risk, woman, … |
| 3 | Food industry and food safety | Composition, compound, contamination, dose, fish, food industry, fruit, protein, … |
| 4 | Agriculture and water resource management | Crop, cultivar, fertilizer, plant, seed, stress, treatment, wheat, … |
Figure 5 illustrates a map of the concepts of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security and the extent to which each word was used. Iranian publications included a number of terms in the area of food security, which resulted in four separate yet connected topic clusters. The fields of “health-related factors and food security” and “environmental and climate change factors” were closely related to the fields of “food industry and food safety” and “agriculture and water resource management”, respectively.
The trend of the subject areas participating in Iranian publications in the field of food security from 2001 to 2020
To study the evolution of the network of concepts of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security in the last twenty years, analyses were conducted over a period of 5 years, as shown in Figure 6. During 2001 – 2005, only 2 clusters of words and concepts were identified. Clusters included “environment and agriculture” and “health and disease” (Figure 6A). Figure 6B shows the thematic clusters of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security from 2006 to 2010. As seen, during the mentioned period, three thematic clusters were identified, so the thematic clusters of “health and disease” still existed and thematic clusters of “environment and water management” and “agriculture and food industry” were added. Besides, the thematic cluster of “agriculture and food industry” had a close relationship with the other two clusters.
Figure 6C shows the scientific map of the concepts of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security from 2011 to 2015. In this time period, 4 thematic clusters, including “climate change and environment”, “agricultural factors”, “food industry”, and “food insecurity and health” were identified, of which “food insecurity and health” and “climate change and environment” had a close relationship with the cluster of “food industry” and “agricultural factors”, respectively.
The last 5-year time span, 2016 – 2020 is addressed in Figure 6D. Again, 4 thematic clusters were identified in which “climate change and environment” and “agricultural factors” still existed, and the thematic clusters of “health and disease” and “air pollution” were identified. It seems that the air pollution cluster was recently formed in the field of food security from 2016 to 2020 and was addressed by Iranian authors.
To study the evolution of the network of concepts of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security in the last twenty years, analyses were conducted over a period of 5 years, as shown in Figure 6. During 2001 – 2005, only 2 clusters of words and concepts were identified. Clusters included “environment and agriculture” and “health and disease” (Figure 6A). Figure 6B shows the thematic clusters of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security from 2006 to 2010. As seen, during the mentioned period, three thematic clusters were identified, so the thematic clusters of “health and disease” still existed and thematic clusters of “environment and water management” and “agriculture and food industry” were added. Besides, the thematic cluster of “agriculture and food industry” had a close relationship with the other two clusters.
Figure 6C shows the scientific map of the concepts of Iranian scientific articles in the field of food security from 2011 to 2015. In this time period, 4 thematic clusters, including “climate change and environment”, “agricultural factors”, “food industry”, and “food insecurity and health” were identified, of which “food insecurity and health” and “climate change and environment” had a close relationship with the cluster of “food industry” and “agricultural factors”, respectively.
The last 5-year time span, 2016 – 2020 is addressed in Figure 6D. Again, 4 thematic clusters were identified in which “climate change and environment” and “agricultural factors” still existed, and the thematic clusters of “health and disease” and “air pollution” were identified. It seems that the air pollution cluster was recently formed in the field of food security from 2016 to 2020 and was addressed by Iranian authors.
Discussion
The present study mapped the field of nutrition and food security based on the published pieces of literature from 2001 to 2020. During these two decades, an increasing trend was observed in the number of publications in this field. In two decades under study, the subjects related to nutrition, health, and disease had been vastly studied by Iranian researchers. Besides, although in the earliest 5-year period the environmental factors affecting food security were generally studied, as time passed, this phenomenon was categorized in more detailed research as climate change, water management, food industry, and air pollution. The results of this study showed that during these years, clinical research was always conducted by Iranian researchers.
A global research trend of food security showed similar results (Xie et al., 2021). It showed the majority of studies were conducted in Europe and America. Moreover, in line with this study, it revealed there was climate change in past years (Xie et al., 2021).
In Iran, food and nutrition research that affected the nutrition policy of the country was supported by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Social Welfare (Mohammadi Nasrabadi et al., 2018). However, despite the significant expansion in recent years, local research in the field of health care is still in its infancy. Thus, to answer the policymaker's questions, it does not provide the necessary evidence to the policymaker, it is not presented to the policymaker in the appropriate form, or the policymaker is not informed about it (Majdzadeh et al., 2010). So, it seems the research plan has not been designed to formulate the policy in nutrition and food security clearly. Moreover, community-based studies, especially in low-income communities are rare. On the other hand, the prevailing atmosphere in the Iranian healthcare system, which pays more attention to treatment rather than public health, is well reflected in the research keywords used over the two decades under study. In this regard, research related to medical practices is still popular. In recent years, universities responsible for medical education and health services have increased student enrollment in clinical nutrition, while the field of community nutrition dropped behind this trend. This is while graduates in the field of community nutrition, with inter-sectorial cooperation, can liaise with other organizations and institutions, including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Industry and Mining, or insurance organizations, to study the factors related to food insecurity, and subsequently, present strategic plans to reduce food insecurity.
This study's results show rising attention towards climate change and air pollution, in the field of nutrition and food security. Climate change is believed to be the most important factor affecting sustainable development. Climate change was shown to inversely affect natural resources, human health, food security, and the environment (Savari and Zhoolideh, 2021). Climate fundamentally determines what to cultivate and the extent of agriculture (Azadi et al., 2019). Therefore, negative climate change can reduce rural areas’ household income, consequently reducing food security among low-income families (Savari and Zhoolideh, 2021). Despite the fact that climate change affects food security (Haque and Khan, 2022), the relationship between food security keywords and climate change was not significant. There are two possible reasons for this. First, not enough research was done in these areas. Or, if so, the researchers did not explicitly discuss it. Second, the reason for the lack of relationship can be that in the present study, the study analysis was based on explicit words, and in the meantime, thesaurus as a simple type of semantic tool was used, which can be a limitation in this study. As Iran is facing climate change (Mansouri Daneshvar et al., 2019), special attention should be paid to this area. In addition, agricultural studies were always conducted in the two-decade time span. Although it was well-established that a sustainable Argo-food system is able to address climate change and food insecurity (Wijerathna-Yapa and Pathirana, 2022), agricultural studies are not properly considered.
Food production is negatively affected by air pollution. Consequently, it can decrease food security (Kaur, 2022). Regarding air pollution in Iranian cities, studies between food security and air pollution are very necessary. Fortunately, in the last 5-year period, air pollution has gained concern. However, further studies are needed to find enough evidence to gain attention to air pollution and its harmful effect on health for policymakers and stakeholders
A gap in this research was assessing food and nutrition literacy among the Iranian population. Some projects were done (Doustmohammadian et al., 2019, Khorramrouz et al., 2020), but as a direct relationship between these phenomena (West et al., 2020), planning programs in the case of low literacy and extended research are necessary to find Iranian food and nutrition literacy,
This is the first study that surveyed nutrition and food security research amp in Iran. The researchers could not compare the growth trend and areas of study with a predefined road map in terms of the lack of a framework for nutritional research. Thus, it is necessary to develop such a research map to find needs, gaps in data, and the food insecurity situation in Iran. Moreover, studies on different ethnic, religious, and geographical groups have not been conducted frequently. It should be considered for future studies to investigate different demographic groups.
As this was the first study conducted in this field, no similar study was available to be compared to the situation in Iran, and the study analysis was based on explicit words, in the meantime, thesaurus as a simple type of semantic tool was used, which could be a limitation in our study.
Policy implications
The optimal security in food and nutrition is a key factor in improving health among families and society. Therefore, in order to provide nutrition and food security, policymakers and health authorities should have targeted strategic plans based on robust evidence. The resulting map of the present study showed that during the last two decades, scattered clinical studies along with agricultural and climate research were dominant in the field of nutrition and food security. However, community nutrition or food and nutrition policy research have been undermined by the researchers. Hence, designing a comprehensive and purposeful research roadmap to improve nutrition and food security is of vital importance in Iran.
Conclusion
Based on the present study, an increasing trend was observed in the crude number of publications on nutrition and food security and safety during the past two decades in Iran. Iranian researchers have vastly studied clinical nutrition, malnutrition, and diet, and in recent years, food production and climate change and their relation to food security with less attention from public health and policy’s point of view towards this issue. Noticeably, there was no comprehensive map and efficient collaboration among different sectors to approach nutrition and food security from different aspects. It seems that the best guideline to consider such an overarching map and define other sectors’ roles would be the national nutrition and food security plan of Iran prepared periodically by the Ministry of Health. Moreover, further studies are needed to explore the distribution of food and nutritional studies in all geographical, socio-cultural, and economic clusters in Iran. Finally, new studies should be conducted to fill the research gap with a focus on public health and policy views.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the vice-chancellor of Research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for the financial support of the study. They would also like to express their gratitude to the department of Scientometrics of the Islamic Word Science Centre, and the Department of Knowledge and Information Sciences of Shiraz University for their collaboration in the study.
Authors' contributions
Keshani P, Mohammadi-Nasrabadi F, and Joulaei H conceptualized the study. Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, and Mohsenpour MA conducted the study. Yaghtin M and Sotudeh H conducted data analysis. Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, Mohammadi-Nasrabadi F, Joulaei H, and Mohsenpour MA interpreted the results. Mohsenpour MA prepared the first draft. Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, and Joulaei H substantially revised the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Funding
This work was supported by the vice-chancellor of Research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (grant number: 18192).
References
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Bello IT, et al. 2021. Scientometric review of proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells. International journal of hydrogen energy. 46 (75): 37406-37428.
Berkowitz SA, Seligman HK, Meigs JB & Basu S 2018. Food insecurity, healthcare utilization, and high cost: a longitudinal cohort study. American journal of managed care. 24 (9): 399.
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Chen C, Chaudhary A & Mathys A 2019. Dietary change scenarios and implications for environmental, nutrition, human health and economic dimensions of food sustainability. Nutrients. 11 (4): 856.
Cobo MJ, López‐Herrera AG, Herrera‐Viedma E & Herrera F 2011. Science mapping software tools: Review, analysis, and cooperative study among tools. Journal of the American society for information science and technology. 62 (7): 1382-1402.
Damari B, Abdollahi Z, Hajifaraji M & Rezazadeh A 2018. Nutrition and food security policy in the Islamic Republic of Iran: situation analysis and roadmap towards 2021. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal. 24 (02): 177-188.
Daneshi-Maskooni M, et al. 2017. Questionnaire-based prevalence of food insecurity in Iran: a review article. Iranian journal of public health. 46 (11): 1454.
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The present study mapped the field of nutrition and food security based on the published pieces of literature from 2001 to 2020. During these two decades, an increasing trend was observed in the number of publications in this field. In two decades under study, the subjects related to nutrition, health, and disease had been vastly studied by Iranian researchers. Besides, although in the earliest 5-year period the environmental factors affecting food security were generally studied, as time passed, this phenomenon was categorized in more detailed research as climate change, water management, food industry, and air pollution. The results of this study showed that during these years, clinical research was always conducted by Iranian researchers.
A global research trend of food security showed similar results (Xie et al., 2021). It showed the majority of studies were conducted in Europe and America. Moreover, in line with this study, it revealed there was climate change in past years (Xie et al., 2021).
In Iran, food and nutrition research that affected the nutrition policy of the country was supported by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Social Welfare (Mohammadi Nasrabadi et al., 2018). However, despite the significant expansion in recent years, local research in the field of health care is still in its infancy. Thus, to answer the policymaker's questions, it does not provide the necessary evidence to the policymaker, it is not presented to the policymaker in the appropriate form, or the policymaker is not informed about it (Majdzadeh et al., 2010). So, it seems the research plan has not been designed to formulate the policy in nutrition and food security clearly. Moreover, community-based studies, especially in low-income communities are rare. On the other hand, the prevailing atmosphere in the Iranian healthcare system, which pays more attention to treatment rather than public health, is well reflected in the research keywords used over the two decades under study. In this regard, research related to medical practices is still popular. In recent years, universities responsible for medical education and health services have increased student enrollment in clinical nutrition, while the field of community nutrition dropped behind this trend. This is while graduates in the field of community nutrition, with inter-sectorial cooperation, can liaise with other organizations and institutions, including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Industry and Mining, or insurance organizations, to study the factors related to food insecurity, and subsequently, present strategic plans to reduce food insecurity.
This study's results show rising attention towards climate change and air pollution, in the field of nutrition and food security. Climate change is believed to be the most important factor affecting sustainable development. Climate change was shown to inversely affect natural resources, human health, food security, and the environment (Savari and Zhoolideh, 2021). Climate fundamentally determines what to cultivate and the extent of agriculture (Azadi et al., 2019). Therefore, negative climate change can reduce rural areas’ household income, consequently reducing food security among low-income families (Savari and Zhoolideh, 2021). Despite the fact that climate change affects food security (Haque and Khan, 2022), the relationship between food security keywords and climate change was not significant. There are two possible reasons for this. First, not enough research was done in these areas. Or, if so, the researchers did not explicitly discuss it. Second, the reason for the lack of relationship can be that in the present study, the study analysis was based on explicit words, and in the meantime, thesaurus as a simple type of semantic tool was used, which can be a limitation in this study. As Iran is facing climate change (Mansouri Daneshvar et al., 2019), special attention should be paid to this area. In addition, agricultural studies were always conducted in the two-decade time span. Although it was well-established that a sustainable Argo-food system is able to address climate change and food insecurity (Wijerathna-Yapa and Pathirana, 2022), agricultural studies are not properly considered.
Food production is negatively affected by air pollution. Consequently, it can decrease food security (Kaur, 2022). Regarding air pollution in Iranian cities, studies between food security and air pollution are very necessary. Fortunately, in the last 5-year period, air pollution has gained concern. However, further studies are needed to find enough evidence to gain attention to air pollution and its harmful effect on health for policymakers and stakeholders
A gap in this research was assessing food and nutrition literacy among the Iranian population. Some projects were done (Doustmohammadian et al., 2019, Khorramrouz et al., 2020), but as a direct relationship between these phenomena (West et al., 2020), planning programs in the case of low literacy and extended research are necessary to find Iranian food and nutrition literacy,
This is the first study that surveyed nutrition and food security research amp in Iran. The researchers could not compare the growth trend and areas of study with a predefined road map in terms of the lack of a framework for nutritional research. Thus, it is necessary to develop such a research map to find needs, gaps in data, and the food insecurity situation in Iran. Moreover, studies on different ethnic, religious, and geographical groups have not been conducted frequently. It should be considered for future studies to investigate different demographic groups.
As this was the first study conducted in this field, no similar study was available to be compared to the situation in Iran, and the study analysis was based on explicit words, in the meantime, thesaurus as a simple type of semantic tool was used, which could be a limitation in our study.
Policy implications
The optimal security in food and nutrition is a key factor in improving health among families and society. Therefore, in order to provide nutrition and food security, policymakers and health authorities should have targeted strategic plans based on robust evidence. The resulting map of the present study showed that during the last two decades, scattered clinical studies along with agricultural and climate research were dominant in the field of nutrition and food security. However, community nutrition or food and nutrition policy research have been undermined by the researchers. Hence, designing a comprehensive and purposeful research roadmap to improve nutrition and food security is of vital importance in Iran.
Conclusion
Based on the present study, an increasing trend was observed in the crude number of publications on nutrition and food security and safety during the past two decades in Iran. Iranian researchers have vastly studied clinical nutrition, malnutrition, and diet, and in recent years, food production and climate change and their relation to food security with less attention from public health and policy’s point of view towards this issue. Noticeably, there was no comprehensive map and efficient collaboration among different sectors to approach nutrition and food security from different aspects. It seems that the best guideline to consider such an overarching map and define other sectors’ roles would be the national nutrition and food security plan of Iran prepared periodically by the Ministry of Health. Moreover, further studies are needed to explore the distribution of food and nutritional studies in all geographical, socio-cultural, and economic clusters in Iran. Finally, new studies should be conducted to fill the research gap with a focus on public health and policy views.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the vice-chancellor of Research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for the financial support of the study. They would also like to express their gratitude to the department of Scientometrics of the Islamic Word Science Centre, and the Department of Knowledge and Information Sciences of Shiraz University for their collaboration in the study.
Authors' contributions
Keshani P, Mohammadi-Nasrabadi F, and Joulaei H conceptualized the study. Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, and Mohsenpour MA conducted the study. Yaghtin M and Sotudeh H conducted data analysis. Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, Mohammadi-Nasrabadi F, Joulaei H, and Mohsenpour MA interpreted the results. Mohsenpour MA prepared the first draft. Keshani P, Yaghtin M, Sotudeh H, and Joulaei H substantially revised the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Funding
This work was supported by the vice-chancellor of Research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (grant number: 18192).
References
Assefa SG & Rorissa A 2013. A bibliometric mapping of the structure of STEM education using co‐word analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 64 (12): 2513-2536.
Azadi Y, Yazdanpanah M, Forouzani M & Mahmoudi H 2019. Farmers' adaptation choices to climate change: a case study of wheat growers in Western Iran. Journal of water and climate change. 10 (1): 102-116.
Behzadifar M, et al. 2016. Prevalence of Food Insecurity in Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Archives of Iranian Medicine. 19 (4): 284-298.
Bello IT, et al. 2021. Scientometric review of proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells. International journal of hydrogen energy. 46 (75): 37406-37428.
Berkowitz SA, Seligman HK, Meigs JB & Basu S 2018. Food insecurity, healthcare utilization, and high cost: a longitudinal cohort study. American journal of managed care. 24 (9): 399.
Brown AG, et al. 2019. Food insecurity and obesity: research gaps, opportunities, and challenges. Translational behavioral medicine. 9 (5): 980-987.
Chen C, Chaudhary A & Mathys A 2019. Dietary change scenarios and implications for environmental, nutrition, human health and economic dimensions of food sustainability. Nutrients. 11 (4): 856.
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Received: 2023/10/6 | Published: 2024/11/20 | ePublished: 2024/11/20
Received: 2023/10/6 | Published: 2024/11/20 | ePublished: 2024/11/20
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