NIEHS

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Publishing in the Developing WorldWestern
PerspectiveThomas J. Goehl, Ph.D.Editor-in-Chie
f
25 May 2005
NIEHS National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences
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Outline of Presentation

• Reasons the developed world should care
• Unique niche for regional journals
• Obstacles to regional journal development
• Some Possible Solutions
• Other Steps
• Environmental Health Perspectives

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Reasons the Developed World Should Care

• Altruistic Reasons (Moral Imperatives)
• Promoting the development of regional journals
  can result in dissemination of biomedical
  information that can
• contribute to adequate health care in the
  developing world by impacting clinical practice
• result in improved knowledge-based decision
  making in the areas of environmental regulations
  population health issues
• help reduce disparities in public health by
  improving working environmental conditions
• facilitate improvement in research methods

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Reasons the Developed World Should Care
(continued)

• Self-Interest
• Promoting the development of regional journals
  can result in dissemination of biomedical
  information that can
• provide global benefits by providing information
  on the spread of disease organisms and
  relationships between toxicant exposure/effect
• provide unique medical information from the
  developing world to the developed world
• open-up research opportunities with human
  populations that are often only found in
  developing countries
• be good foreign policy

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Unique Niche for Regional Journals

• Publish research relevant to local situations
• Resource for continuing education
• Information for health care professionals in
  local areas
• Forum for aspiring researchers to enhance
  publication skills

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Obstacles to Regional Journal Development

• Insufficient resources
• Quality of research submitted
• Quality writing of submitted articles
• Review process limited by experts fluent in local
  language of research article
• Reluctance of authors to submit quality papers
  because of concern about journal stature and
  limited dissemination of research results
• Limited regional journal choices result in
  information drain

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Some Possible Solutions

• Identify additional organizations to provide
  funding for support efforts such as provided by
  WHO FIC
• Expand training/mentoring of authors, reviewers,
  editors
• Develop committed Journal-to-Journal partnerships
• Regional journal prominently identify
  international journal partner (similar to local
  news station affiliating with national network
  news organization to gain increased credibility)
• Co-publish research articles in partner journals
• Share appropriate news coverage for translation
  and publication in regional journal

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Other Steps

• Educate policy makers on the importance of
  capacity building efforts from both a moral
  imperative standpoint but also from a
  self-interest perspective
• One-on-one efforts can be very effective but need
  governments and NGOs to provide the
  infrastructure to facilitate the one-on-one
  efforts

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Environmental Health PerspectivesOverview

• MissionGlobal dissemination of credible
  environmental health information
• PublisherUnited States National Institute of
  Environmental Health Sciences
• Highest ranked environmental health journal
• An open-access monthly journal
• Publishes articles within 24 hours of acceptance
  as In-Press articles
• Rejection rate 76

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Environmental Health Perspectives International
Initiatives

• Provide complimentary print subscriptions to
  readers in developing countries
• Translate summaries of EHP articles (In This
  Issue" section) into Chinese, French, Japanese,
  Russian, Spanish
• Publish Chinese edition
• Publish EHP news articles in the Spanish language
  journal, Ciencia y Trabajo
• Partner with Mali Medical