Nutrition research in the first decade of 21 century in Iran: the necessity of road Map

Due to important role of nutrition research in understanding of relevant health subjects and lack of periodic situation analysis of nutrition articles in Iran, this study was conducted to assess nutrition publications in two time intervals of 2001–2005 and 2006–2010 in Farsi scientific journals. A title to title search was performed in all medical, basic science, agricultural and veterinary journals in a 10-year period. All the article titles were placed in techniques, foods, nutritional biochemistry and physiology, nutrition and health, and clinical nutrition subject headings based on Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews Series A (NARA) database. The publication type and the study design were also determined. Statistical analysis was carried out by chi square to test temporal changes. There were 2127 Farsi publications. The original articles consisted 98.1% of the articles. Interventional and survey articles composed 28.1% and 20.8% of the publication types, respectively. Researchers were mostly interested in descriptive articles. Regarding subject, nutrition and health, and clinical nutrition were of the first and second time period interests, respectively. In comparison between the two time periods, regarding subject heading, the proportion of nutrition and health publications showed a significant decline; while, the proportion of clinical nutrition publication showed a remarkable rise. The publication type, subject and study design of the article do not follow coordinated planning and policy making. Therefore, these researches are not efficient enough to solve nutritional problems in our community properly. Planning of the research priorities in the field of food and nutrition with the agreement and participation of all stakeholders is a necessity.