Conducting Environmental Health Research in the Arabian Middle East: Lessons Learned and Opportunities

Abstract

Background: The Arabian Gulf nations are undergoing rapid economic development, leading to major shifts in both the traditional lifestyle and the environment. Although the pace of change is brisk, there is a dearth of environmental health research in this region.Objective: We describe challenges and successes of conducting an environmental epidemiologic study in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Gulf nation in the Middle East, with an inter-disciplinary team that includes in-country academic and government collaborators as well as U.S. academic collaborators.Discussion: We present several issues, including study and data collection design, exposure assessment, scheduling and time coordination, quality assurance and quality control, and institutional review board protocols. These topics are considered in a cultural context. Benefits of this research included building linkages among multinational, interdisciplinary team members, generating data for local environmental decision making, and developing local epidemiologic research capacity. The Middle Eastern culture of hospitality greatly benefited the project team.Conclusion: Cultural differences impact multiple aspects of epidemiologic research and should be respectfully addressed. Conducting international population-based environmental research poses many challenges; these challenges can be met successfully with careful planning, cultural knowledge, and flexibility. Lessons learned are applicable to interdisciplinary research all over the world. The research conducted will benefit the environmental and public health agencies of the UAE and provide the nation’s leadership with country-specific environmental health data that can be used to protect the public’s health in a rapidly changing environment.

A bibliometric-based evaluation on environmental research in the Arab world

“…As pointed out by Yeatts et al (2012), the scientific interests in environmental health research are for many factors including the rapid transformation in the physical environment associated with raises in industry and traffic-related pollutants, extremely high temperatures and alterations in lifestyles. They concluded that, despite the accelerated and dramatic environmental changes, the environmental health-related research was little (Yeatts et al 2012).…”

“…As pointed out by Yeatts et al (2012), the scientific interests in environmental health research are for many factors including the rapid transformation in the physical environment associated with raises in industry and traffic-related pollutants, extremely high temperatures and alterations in lifestyles. They concluded that, despite the accelerated and dramatic environmental changes, the environmental health-related research was little (Yeatts et al 2012). Similar to the previous finding, the global research report by Thomson Reuters indicated that during the period from 2005 to 2009, the region of the Middle East (Persian, Arabian and Turkish Middle East) published only 4676 documents in environment/ecology research which represent a proportion equal to 3.24% of total world's research productivity (Adams et al 2011).…”

Public, environmental, and occupational health research activity in Arab countries: bibliometric, citation, and collaboration analysis

“…Several studies about public health situation, challenges and future aspects of health systems in Arab countries have been published [55][56][57]. Similarly, several studies in environmental and occupational health risks in Arab countries have also been published [58][59][60][61][62][63]. However, up to the authors' best knowledge, no reports about the quantity and quality of public, environmental and occupational health from Arab countries had been published [64][65][66][67].…”

Challenges and Opportunities in International Molecular Cancer Prevention Research: An ASPO Molecular Epidemiology and the Environment and International Cancer Prevention Interest Groups Report

“…This situation limits certain study designs and testing of the hypotheses. Scientists also often face challenges of quality control when projects are conducted in another country (11, 12). Although most investigators seek to be in the field when the study is initiated and to visit the field often and periodically, it is difficult to make frequent and prolonged visits to provide constant supervision.…”