Scope and Purpose
Acknowledging the increasingly important role of communicators in shaping health policy choices, the World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA) is encouraging the creation of a World Health Editors Network (WHEN). WHEN would proactively 'reach out' to involve and support scientific/professional journal editors and other communicators in public health advocacy action by facilitating their early engagement as full partners in planning responses to key health challenges, eg Avian Flu, Human Resource Development, etc.
It is envisioned that WHEN would serve as an inter-professional, public/private information exchange platform for addressing global health communication trends (see box). Possible foci for WHEN include strengthening the positive role of communications as a determinant of health, the application of scientific evidence in policy making, and the further elaboration and dissemination of the IPI/IFJ/WHO ethical code for health communicators.
- The growing importance of communication as a determinant of health;
- Increasingly competitive health information marketplaces, often dominated by hazard merchants;
- Weakening presence of independent, evidence-based, ethical health information; and
- Widening information gaps between and within countries with inequities in information/communication access closely paralleling and reinforcing social gradient differentials in disease and mortality patterns.
While some of the WHO and WHPA aims are identified above, it is assumed that the Network will be an independent entity and set its own agenda and priorities.
This meeting will explore the feasibility and desirability of developing the WHEN. To this end, a small core group of editors and agency-based communicators are being convened to scope out a development plan. Invitees include communication coordinators from WHO, ICN, WMA, FIP, editors from national medical, nursing, pharmacy and dental association journals, as well as health and science editors from major newspaper and TV/radio networks.
- Exploring the feasibility and desirability of a WHEN
- Agreeing "rules of engagement"
- Identifying developmental steps, including preliminary plans for a launch event