A bibliometric analysis of global research outputs on seafood and antibiotics (1999-2019)

This study is aimed at investigating the global trend in research activities involving seafood and antibiotics based on published research output articles. Peer reviewed articles published in the last two decades involving seafood and antibiotics were searched on the Scopus database using the search words “seafood” and “antibiotics’’. The retrieved data were then analyzed based on the total research outputs, countries and affiliation of authors, sources of funding, keywords used by the authors, citations and collaborations using both add-on analytical tool, Microsoft Excel and VOS viewer for data visualization. A total of 447 research outputs by 710 authors affiliated with 1173 institutions from 74 countries using 1051 keywords were obtained. Original research articles accounted for the highest percentage (87.7%) and published across 166 different peer-reviewed journals. Most of the original research articles were published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology 27(16.3%). Khan, A. A. from the Division of Microbiology; National Centre for Toxicological Research, United States, was the most productive author with 10 (2.2%) publications while the National Natural Science Foundation of China was the highest funding institution with 22 (4.9%) and the United States of America was the most productive with 91 (20.4%) research outputs followed by China with 70 (15.7%) research outputs. Over the last two decades (1999 – 2019), there has been an exponential (r²=0.91) increase in seafood and antibiotics related research activities. The majority of these research activities were from America, Asia and Europe. There is need for international scientific collaboration between the leading researchers and researchers from developing countries in seafood research to help mitigate food loss, enhance food security, and increase the productivity of early career researchers.