PhD student Seye Abimbola launches BMJ Global Health
The inaugural edition of the BMJ Global Health, the newest in the renowned British Medical Journal family of publications, has been released under the leadership of editor-in-chief and George Institute PhD student Dr Seye Abimbola.
BMJ Global Health is an open access, online journal dedicated to publishing high-quality peer-reviewed content relevant to those involved in global health, such as policy makers, funders, researchers, clinicians and, crucially, frontline healthcare workers. Articles in its first edition include one highlighting the increasing numbers of male smokers in India, and another issuing a call to ditch 'colonial' thinking to boost access to surgery for the world's poor.
Dr Abimbola said, “The BMJ Global Health came about because we wanted to address one of the most important challenges in global health, which is the challenge of information. Many global health interventions and programs are designed by people who are far removed from the realities in which the interventions are being implemented, so often there is an information gap.
“We are trying to address two main types of information gap: one which exists between policy makers and implementers, and those between implementers and beneficiaries.
“The driving idea for this journal is to provide information to all stakeholders in global health, so that they can better address problems of equity and problems of improving health outcomes for disadvantaged people everywhere in the world.”
A medically qualified public health specialist, Dr Abimbola spent seven years working to deliver health services and strengthen health systems in Nigeria. From 2009-10, he was a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of Sydney where he worked on several projects at The George Institute. In 2007, he was awarded the British Medical Journal Clegg Scholarship and also won the joint Lancet and Global Forum for Health Research Essay Prize for “Young Voices in Research for Health.” In 2010, the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium named him as an “Emerging Voice for Global Health”.
He was announced as the Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Global Health in September 2015. "This role is a great honour and opportunity to expand the scope of global health discussion and debate, by including the voices and realities of people on the ground whose perspectives are often ignored, so that people who are able to help them have the right information to maximise the benefits of their investment and support,” he said.
"What interests me about global health is that it puts a focus on addressing the needs of disadvantaged people all over the world, and having grown up in Nigeria, I have a personal connection to a lot of the issues."
The journal's editorial advisory board also includes Professor Anushka Patel, Chief Scientist at The George Institute. Read the first edition of BMJ Global Health.
