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Assessment of Environmental Health Research Centers in Iran due to knowledge production and utilization

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Abstract

Background

Knowledge production in environmental health promotion is one of the most important goals at the national level and establishing environmental health research centers (EHRCs) is one of the main strategies that will lead to achieving this goal. In this study, we are going to present the results of knowledge production and research performance evaluation of EHRCs in Iran.

Methods

In this cross sectional study, a specific check list has been used to assess Knowledge production and utilization through annual evaluations undertaken by research centers in Iran. This article has the results of the 4-year evaluation (2011–2014).

Results

The total number of EHRCs under the supervision of universities of medical sciences (UMS) is 34. The number of faculty members at these centers is 291 and the total approved projects by research council of UMS during 2011–2014, were 538. The number of published article increased from 282 in 2011 to 709 in 2014. During this period, the number of citations to EHRCs’ articles was 4488 in Scopus database. The number of EHRCs’ articles which have been referred in text books were 39. The proportion of published articles per academic member in environmental health has been 1.8 per year.

Conclusion

Based on research performance evaluation, knowledge production and research is desirable in EHRCs, but research utilization to health environmental promotion is still inadequate and should be assessed by qualitative evaluation.

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Abbreviations

MRC:

Medical Research Center

MOHME:

Ministry of Health and Medical Education

EHRC:

Environmental Health Research Center

WHO:

World Health Organization

UMSs:

Universities of Medical Sciences

EH:

Environmental Health

KTE:

Knowledge Translation & Exchange

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their thanks to deputy for Research and Technology experts in Universities of Medical Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dentofacial Deformities Research Center, Research Institute of Dental Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Asghar Ebadifar

  2. School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Alireza Mesdaghinia

  3. Undersecretary for Research and Technology, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Section a, 13th floor, Shahrake gharb, Tehran, Iran

    Monir Baradaran Eftekhari & Katayoun Falahat

Authors
  1. Asghar Ebadifar
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  2. Alireza Mesdaghinia
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  3. Monir Baradaran Eftekhari
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  4. Katayoun Falahat
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Contributions

AE supervised the study and he participated in all stages of study. MBE was the main investigator and she also has participated in all stages of the study (design of the study, collected the data, analyzing of data and manuscript preparation). KF was co- investigator which performed data collection and technical analysis. AM was advisor of the study and participated in the intellectual helping in different stages of the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Monir Baradaran Eftekhari.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Ebadifar, A., Mesdaghinia, A., Baradaran Eftekhari, M. et al. Assessment of Environmental Health Research Centers in Iran due to knowledge production and utilization. J Environ Health Sci Engineer 16, 35–40 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40201-018-0293-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40201-018-0293-7

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