The chain of communication in health science: from researcher to health worker through open access

Chan, Leslie; Arunachalam, Subbiah; Kirsop, Barbara

The events link on the Open Access Directory web site records much global activity, but those activities are limited in the main to the industrialized world. Dedic ated groups such as the Electronic Information for Lib raries network, the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, the recently launched Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook, together with the development agencies, publishers and repository man agers in developing countries, are all making sterling ef forts to inform and train to support open access capacity, but these efforts would be much strengthened by support from the major international agencies. In the area of health, WHO has a leading role to play in supporting the establishment of open access repositor ies and journals, and it is encouraging to note that in its Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, In novation and Intellectual Property, the World Health Assembly lists the following as one of its objectives: "promote public access to the results of government fun ded research, by strongly encouraging that all investigat ors funded by governments submit to an open access database an electronic version of their final, peerre viewed manuscripts." 25 Although other problems remain (connectivity, strengthening the links further down the communica tion chain, education, training, and translation of both language and content), there has been a surge of activity in efforts to resolve communication difficulties. As dis cussions on the HIFA2015 forum show, mobile commu nications and other technologies are starting to have an impact on the transmission of information to remote areas, and the communications infrastructure is an on going priority in the developing world (see reports from Balancing Act's newsletter News Update).