title: A Bibliometric and Trend Analysis on the Water-Related Risk Assessment Studies for Cryptosporidium Pathogen.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The bibliometric methods have been used in many disciplines of sciences to study the scientific production and research trends. In this study, they were used to investigate research trends related to the risk assessment of Cryptosporidium pathogen in water field.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were obtained on the Scopus database from 1993 to 2013. Research tendency was investigated by analyzing the distribution of languages, countries, journals, author keywords, authorship pattern and co-authorship relations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The English language was dominant language of all publications (96.36%). Number of articles in this field increased from 2 in 1993 to 29 papers in 2007 and then received to 19 at the end of 2013. United States produced 35.41% of all pertinent articles followed by United Kingdom with 10.76% and Australia with 9.92%. Water Research Journal published the most papers in this field, taking 11.62% of all, followed by Journal of Water and Health (10.92%) and Water Science and Technology (10.21%). The most productive authors were Ashbolt NJ form Canada that accounts about 1.51% of the total publications followed by Rose JB and Haas CN from United States. Authorship pattern analysis results show that literature does follow Lotka's law (P=0.627).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A downward trend in the number of publications is likely to occur in future. The results of this bibliometric analysis may help relevant researchers realize the scope of the microbial risk assessment research of Cryptosporidium, and establish the further research direction.
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Quality Research (CWQR), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences , Tehran, Iran ; Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mesdaghinia
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Center for Air Pollution Research (CAPR), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Masuod
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Younesian
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Quality Research (CWQR), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences , Tehran, Iran ; Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Simin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nasseri
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Center for Air Pollution Research (CAPR), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ramin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nabizadeh Nodehi
authors.affiliation: Center for Water Quality Research (CWQR), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences , Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hadi
keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Cryptosporidium; Risk assessment; Scopus; Water