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Annette Flanagin, RN, MA; Margaret A. Winker, MD

JAMA. 2007;298:1942.

With this theme issue on poverty and human development, JAMA joins more than 230 science and biomedical journals participating in a global theme issue on this critically important topic.^1-2 The aim of this global theme issue, organized through the Council of Science Editors (CSE), is to raise awareness, stimulate interest, and disseminate research about the worldwide problem of poverty and human development. This international collaboration includes journals from 34 developing and developed countries. Participating journals with links to their Web sites and articles on the topic of poverty and human development are listed on the CSE Web site.² This is the third and largest of such global theme issues. In 1996, 36 journals from 21 countries published on the theme of emerging and reemerging global microbial threats,³ and in 1997, 97 journals in 31 countries published on the theme of aging.⁴

More than 100 manuscripts on the topic of poverty and human development were submitted for JAMA’s theme issue. The articles in this issue, all made freely available at www.jama.com, focus on a range of poverty- and development-related topics and include reports of new research addressing the need to target funding and programs for the poor, to make the best use of local health care resources in developing countries, to improve research on poverty and inequities and health, and to improve how such research projects and programs are designed and evaluated. Only through such intensive and comprehensive research will the United Nations Millennium Development Goals⁵ be able to be achieved and the world's poor be able to benefit from the essential resources, knowledge, and techniques available to those in developed nations.

We hope the articles and new research published this week by the world's scientific journals will demonstrate the burgeoning success of efforts to conduct rigorous research on the health needs of the poor, to provide evidence-based solutions, and to target future funding and research on effective development programs that aim to reduce poverty and improve global health.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Financial Disclosures: None reported.

Editorials represent the opinions of the authors and JAMA and not those of the American Medical Association.

Author Affiliations: Ms Flanagin (annette.flanagin{at}jama-archives.org) is Managing Deputy Editor and Dr Winker is Deputy Editor, JAMA.

REFERENCES
1. Flanagin A, Winker MA. Theme issue on poverty and human development: call for papers on interventions to improve health among the poor. JAMA. 2006;296(24):2970-2971. FREE FULL TEXT 2. Council of Science Editors. Global theme issue. http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/globalthemeissue.cfm. Accessed September 23, 2007.3. Winker MA, Flanagin A. Infectious diseases: a global approach to a global problem. JAMA. 1996;275(3):245-246. FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED 4. Winker MA. Aging: a global issue. JAMA. 1997;278(16):1377. FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED 5. United Nations. UN Millennium Development Goals. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals. Accessed September 25, 2007.