Dear HIFA colleagues,
Chris Zielinski and colleagues achieved a
remarkable feat by publishing a climate emergency editorial
simultaneously in more than 250 journals. What does this tell us about
communicating health research to policymakers?
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2022/10/18/bjsports-2022-106442
The
point was 'to demonstrate the united will of the medical profession,
including all areas (nursing, mental health, veterinary medicine, etc.),
to combat the health effects of climate change'.
The key message
of the authors is to urge 'wealthy nations to finally step up',
particularly to realise 'the promised target of providing US$100 billion
of climate finance a year... ensuring these resources focus on
increasing resilience to the existing and inevitable future impacts of
the climate crisis, as well as on supporting vulnerable nations to
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions'.
The message is supported by a well-worded case, and by a string of references to published research.
The
piece is jointly authored by the editors of medical journals, which was
presumably a deliberate decision to emphasise solidarity rather than
including climate scientists and others.
In relation to
'communicating health research to policymakers' the exercise suggests
more can be achieved when scientists work in solidarity and
cooperatively than individually and in competition.
It will be
interesting to see what happens at COP27. Will there be major steps
forward along the lines that this editorial calls for? If so, what were
the key contributing factors to the decisions made? One suspects the
shared voices of 250-plus journals will play an important role.
Moreover, their solidarity and cooperation is in place and ready to take
on the next major advocacy challenge.
Best wishes, Neil
Joint Coordinator, HIFA Communicating health research
https://www.hifa.org/projects/new-effective-communication-health-research-policymakers
Neil Pakenham-Walsh, Global Coordinator HIFA, www.hifa.org neil AT hifa.org
Global Healthcare Information Network: Working in official relations with WHO
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
