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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA, Public Health and Family Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111, 617-636-0834, anthony.robbins@tufts.edu

A global ‘publishing gap' condemns the efforts at reducing poverty to suffer from the shortsightedness of the rich. This is because the health and science researchers closest to poverty and poor health in the developing world are the least likely to publish their work and ideas in the academic journals that influence policymakers.

Various proposals to address this problem have been made. We would like to suggest an additional strategy, which would link developing-world authors with promising work to voluntary editor/scientist mentors anywhere in the world, on a manuscript-by-manuscript basis.

The mentors could then help the authors prepare submissions that science and policy journals will accept and publish. Hence the result is “AuthorAID.”

Once launched, the AuthorAID website will invite inquiries from developing world authors. It will ink promising writing projects with distinguished volunteer scientists and will enlist author's editors to provide the knowledge and know-how that will assure publications

In the age of the Internet, geography is no longer a barrier. Author-mentor partnerships might be created in a country, such as India or Vietnam. They could be created within a region by matching an author from Bolivia with a mentor in Chile or Mexico. Together, these teams will increase capacity to communicate knowledge locally and globally, particularly in and from developing countries.

AuthorAID, with a lofty underlying mission, its function built around editing, will publicly honor this valuable activity, and improve science communication and policy knowledge globally.

Learning Objectives:

• This session will approach strategies aimed at addressing the gaps in funding and publication that hinder

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation