23/04/03

Medical journals need more global perspective

By: David A. Shaywitz and Dennis A. Ausiello

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Medical journals need more global perspective</h1>
<h4>By: David A. Shaywitz and Dennis A. Ausiello</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>Last year the World Health Organisation announced that a consortium of medical publishers was to provide physicians and scientists in the world’s poorest countries with cheap access to biomedical research journals via the Internet.<BR><BR>Not enough, according to a letter in this week’s issue of <em>Nature</em>, which argues that most of the articles made available in this way will be geared to the medical problems of patients in developed countries.<BR><BR>The letter calls for journals to focus on content, not just distribution. A good first step would be to commit a consistent quota of pages — say 15 per cent — to articles that address the medical concerns of developing countries.<BR><BR>Reference: <em>Nature</em> 415, 575 (2002)<BR><BR><a href="http://www.nature.com/login/scidev_login.taf?ref=/nature/journal/v415/n6872/full/415575a_fs.html" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full text</A></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/opinions/medical-journals-need-more-global-perspective/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/opinions/medical-journals-need-more-global-perspective/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Last year the World Health Organisation announced that a consortium of medical publishers was to provide physicians and scientists in the world’s poorest countries with cheap access to biomedical research journals via the Internet.

Not enough, according to a letter in this week’s issue of Nature, which argues that most of the articles made available in this way will be geared to the medical problems of patients in developed countries.

The letter calls for journals to focus on content, not just distribution. A good first step would be to commit a consistent quota of pages — say 15 per cent — to articles that address the medical concerns of developing countries.

Reference: Nature 415, 575 (2002)

Link to full text