title: Priority issues, study designs and geographical distribution in nutrition journals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The increased number of articles published in nutrition is a reflection of the relevance to scientific community. The characteristics and quality of nutritional studies determine whether readers can obtain valid conclusions from them, as well as their usefulness for evidence-based strategic policies.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine the characteristics of papers published in nutrition journals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Descriptive study design. We reviewed 330 original papers published between January-June 2007. From: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN), Journal of Nutrition, European Journal Nutrition, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and Public Health Nutrition. We classified them according to the subjects studied; risk factors, study design and country of origin.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Almost half the papers studied healthy people (53.3%). The most frequent illness was obesity (13.9%). Food consumption is the most frequent risk factor (63.3%). Social factors appear exclusively only in 3.6% of the papers. Clinical trials were the most common analytical design (31.8%), mainly in the AJCN (45.6%). Cross-sectional studies were the most frequent type of observational design (37.9%). Ten countries produced over half of the papers (51.3%). The US publishes the highest number of papers (20.6%), whilst developing countries make only scarce contributions to scientific literature on nutrition.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most of the papers had inferential power. They generally studied both healthy and sick subjects, coinciding with the aims of international scientific policies. However, the topics covered reflect a clear bias, prioritizing problems pertaining to developed countries. Social determinants of health should also be considered, along with behavioral and biological risk factors.
authors.affiliation: Enfermería Comunitaria, Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública e Historia de la Ciencia, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, España. rocio.ortiz@ua.es
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ortiz-Moncada
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: González-Zapata
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Ruiz-Cantero
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Clemente-Gómez
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D005843:Geography; D006304:Health Status; D052756:Nutritional Sciences; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012107:Research Design; D035842:Research Subjects; D012307:Risk Factors