1 Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Durham, NC.
2 Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD.
3 US Science and Medical Journals, Oxford University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Abbreviations: AJE, American Journal of Epidemiology
The American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) is the most highly cited journal in the field of public health. It is a staple of health libraries throughout the United States and Europe. Beyond the developed world, however, the picture is sharply different. In the poorest countries, where epidemiologists deal with some of the most difficult public health problems, AJE is nearly inaccessible. Among the 200 countries in the world, there are 63 listed by the World Bank as "low income." These hold more than half of the world's population, yet they receive 5 percent of AJE's institutional subscriptions.
AJE is pleased to announce a partnership to bridge this barrier. In alliance with our publisher (Oxford University Press), our owner (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), and our affiliated scientific society (Society for Epidemiologic Research), AJE is launching a program to make electronic subscriptions available at no cost to nonprofit institutions in the poor countries of the world.
Citizens of developed nations may not fully realize how widely dispersed electronic communication has become in the less developed nations. In settings where paper is scarce and postal delivery uncertain, access to the Internet flourishes. AJE started in November 2000 to publish its issues on the World Wide Web through HighWire Press, an Internet service. In February 2001, AJE began a pilot project to make this electronic, full-text subscription free to institutions in five of the world's poorest countriesEthiopia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nicaragua.
These subscriptions are dubbed "Jubilee Subscriptions," in concert with the international Jubilee movement to forgive Third-World debt. Electronic subscriptions are awarded for a 2-year period and will be renewable. All nonprofit organizations in these countries are eligible, including government health agencies, nonprofit agencies, and public universities. Our next step will be to expand eligibility to the remaining 58 low-income countries.
The idea behind this program is neither original nor unique. The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology already provides deeply discounted membership (with a subscription to Epidemiology) to anyone living outside the 32 wealthiest nations. An increasing number of scientific journals provide online access to their current issues. The more radical step of unlimited free electronic subscriptions was proposed in 1997 by Ron LaPorte (1), who suggested that Internet servers could, in principle, make scientific journals easily available to the underdeveloped nations of the world.
As AJE proceeds to make this leap, we recognize that increased access to the scientific literature is only a small step in addressing the public health problems of the developing world. However, at the very least, Jubilee subscriptions will extend the community of AJE's readership. We hope this can help to relieve the burden of professional isolation that too often comes with work in developing countries. We welcome this closer connection to colleagues who are tackling some of the world's toughest public health challenges.
We also recognize that this connection is not a one-way street. Perspectives from the developing world (through the publication of research reports, commentaries, and correspondence) can help to foster in the developed world a more resilient and comprehensive understanding of the role of epidemiology.
We ask our readers' assistance in making the availability of Jubilee subscriptions widely known. E-mail your colleagues in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nicaragua to let them know about the Jubilee pilot program. A full description is available through the AJE website (http://www.aje.oupjournals.org/). As the Jubilee program is expanded to more countries, we will ask your help in spreading the word.
Finally, as other public health journals move into electronic publication, we urge them to consider creating their own Jubilee subscriptions. If a core of public health journals make this step, an even wider circle of medical journals might consider it as well. It is seldom that we have the opportunity to do so much good for so little cost.
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