EDITORIAL |
https://doi.org/10.5005/bjotgh-11016-0002 |
Integrating and Leveraging the Knowledge and Skills of Translational Global Health: Our Promises
1Department of Research and Education, City of London Dental School, University of Bolton, London, United Kingdom
2Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Queen’s Hospital, NHS Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals, NHS Trust, Romford, London, United Kingdom
3Department of Clinical Chemistry and Bioscience, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom
Corresponding Author: Chitta R Chowdhury, Department of Research and Education, City of London Dental School, University of Bolton, London, United Kingdom, Phone: +447932704064, e-mail: editor@britishjournalglobalhealth.co.uk
How to cite this article: Chowdhury CR, Chowdhury AD, Grootveld M. Integrating and Leveraging the Knowledge and Skills of Translational Global Health: Our Promises. Br J Transl Glob Health 2024;1(1):1–2.
Source of support: Nil
Conflict of interest: None
Keywords: Global health, Monitoring and assessment, Translational health research.
Translational global health usually has governmental and non-governmental participation to address health issues primarily at the national level, and the issues have an impact globally too.1,2 According to the Consortium of Universities for Global Health’s Executive Board, translational global health encompasses “a notion (the current state of global health), an objective (a world of healthy people), and a mix of scholarship, research, and practice (with many questions, issues, skills, and competencies)”.3
The context of global health has continuous challenges to design and implement solutions for tackling health and diseases across different countries. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested several goals to strengthen global health across countries, the national surveillance and response systems are still struggling to work in a positive direction amongst developed countries.4 Hence, the issue of global partnership for the improvement of health, and the sustenance of human rights, along with research efforts is still facing major challenges amongst most of the developed countries today.
Of them, cross-border disease transmission, which is ascribable to easy travel access across a wide range of countries, is an important area to be addressed.5 When we look at infectious diseases, the case is alarming. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is probably one of the best examples of human tragedy.6 Moreover, the global transmission of HIV infection, and tuberculosis (now known as the top global infectious disease killers) still represents a major challenge in many countries.7–10
The British Journal of Translational Global Health is an open-access peer-reviewed journal that has an interest in translational research to be carried out amongst disadvantaged and marginalised communities, irrespective of their socio-economic status. This unique and novel Journal focusses on applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in health, environmental health, biomedical and nutritional research, drug development for cancer prevention and control, health economics, health system research, family medicine, mental health, maternal and child health, medical education, humanitarian crisis-related health, and medical pedagogy, amongst other important issues. This journal is open to receiving manuscripts not only from the branches of medical and dental sciences, but also research communications from the areas of allied health, life science, and pharmaceutical sciences, that serve to facilitate contributions towards health protection and promotion through a frontier research approach. This would also help generate a fact-based understanding of health. In addition, we welcome research to be published in the areas of health policy, which helps researchers develop an understanding between healthcare professionals, the public, and policymakers in general. This Journal aims to ensure the publication of the best evidence for the delivery of improved health conditions across third-world countries. The decolonising agenda in global health is, of course, a major challenge. This journal has a major focal point of this consideration too. In the context of the current situation, this remains a pressing challenge, since many predatory journals publish poor-quality manuscripts online, and that distorts researchers whilst citing them in a non-reputable journal. The effective confrontation of such unacceptable routes to ‘academic success’ also represents an agenda of this Journal.
We will also publish a range of reviews, commentaries, short reports, case-reports, CPD sessions, and author and reader correspondence. Apart from regular issues, we also have a special issue (thematic) to address the sudden upsurge of challenges in health across a wide range of countries. Importantly, this Journal will stimulate the scientific podcast debate on health conditions of global interest. We have a distinctive policy to publish both translational and interdisciplinary research that benefits both human health and well-being directly.
In conclusion, the British Journal of Translational Global Health has underpinning issues regarding the identification of the most appropriate strategies to address and contain those strategies. Indeed, this journal aims to address these issues too. We are privileged to have so many distinguished researchers and clinicians on board, notably, those who are supportive of taking our initiative forward.
ORCID
Chitta R Chowdhury https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4226-3565
REFERENCES
1. Kickbusch I. The need for a European strategy on global health. Scand J Public Health 2006;34(6):561–565. DOI: 10.1080/14034940600973059.
2. Beaglehole R, Bonita R. What is global health? Glob Health Action 2010;3. DOI: 10.3402/gha.v3i0.5142.
3. Koplan JP, Bond TC, Merson MH, et al. Towards a common definition of global health. Lancet 2009;373(9679):1993–1995. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60332-9.
4. World Health Organization. WHO: Global health sector strategies 2022–2030. Available from: https://www.who.int/teams/global-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-programmes/strategies/global-health-sector-strategies.
5. Castelli F. Drivers of migration: Why do people move? J Travel Med 2018;25(1). DOI: 10.1093/jtm/tay040.
6. Msherghi A, Alsuyihili A, Alsoufi A, et al. Mental health consequences of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study. Front Psychol 2021;12:605279. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.605279.
7. Ferrara P, Masuet-Aumatell C, Ramon-Torrell JM. Pre-travel health care attendance among migrant travelers visiting friends and relatives (VFR): A 10-year retrospective analysis. BMC Public Health 2019;19:1397. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-019-7722-0.
8. Ferrara P, Gianfredi V. The Italian PrEPventHIV challenge: A scoping systematic review on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis monitoring in Italy. Acta Biomed 2022;93(3):e2022164. DOI: 10.23750/abm.v93i3.12766.
9. Kochi A. The global tuberculosis situation and the new control strategy of the World Health Organization. Tubercle 1991;72(1):1–6. DOI: 10.1016/0041-3879(91)90017-M.
10. World Health Organization. Tuberculosis. World Health Organization. Available online at: https://www.who.int/health-topics/tuberculosis#tab=tab_1.
________________________
© The Author(s). 2024 Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and non-commercial reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.