Celebrating Editorial Impact: Launching a journal dedicated to global health and poverty issues

Author: Xiao-Nong Zhou

Springer Nature celebrates and recognises our editors and teams for their achievements in editorial board development, journal growth, increasing diversity, and more. In this blog series, based on inspirational contributions from the 2023 Celebrating Editorial Impact event, editors-in-chief from across Springer Nature share exciting and innovative initiatives they are pursuing, the journey to implementing them, and the impact these have had on their journals and communities. 

In today’s post, Prof. Xiao-Nong Zhou, founding Editor-in-Chief of Infectious Diseases of Poverty, shares the journey of launching a journal with ambitious goals for creating impact: To support improvements of public health interventions in poor settings and thus promote sustainable development.

The notion that diseases don’t discriminate is easy to comprehend, but whilst everybody is vulnerable to infection, some are more at risk than others. Poverty, low social status, environmental degradation, and changing ecosystems are factors that fuel and exacerbate the vulnerability of marginalised people to infectious diseases.

As a researcher, I wanted to address the lacuna I identified in interdisciplinary, policy-relevant publications on infectious diseases of poverty, and set out to create a journal that would inject such publications into the research and policy communities. Health is a fundamental issue which cuts across all dimensions of sustainable development, and so this journal was created with the goal of directly impacting this field of research.

Dedicating a journal to diseases of poverty

The term ‘infectious diseases of poverty’ is used to describe diseases that are known to be more prevalent amongst poorer populations. It is also the name of the journal I founded in 2012, for which I  have since the honour to serve as Editor-in-Chief. Infectious Diseases of Poverty (the journal) aims to explore new avenues in research to better understand the relationship between infectious diseases and poverty, and to contribute to setting priorities for plans to control these diseases.

Infectious Diseases of Poverty builds on the ‘One World–One Health’ approach, which charted a new course for research on infectious diseases that recognises the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. This approach emphasises the need for intersectional collaboration and interdisciplinarity, as well as bridging research and policy for maximum impact.

True to this approach, the journal brings together multiple research perspectives, including health systems, environmental and social sciences, agriculture, and more. This paradigm shift contrasts the historic legacy of the siloed ‘disease-by-disease’ approach used predominantly for many years. The holistic approach of Infectious Diseases of Poverty supports the design of more appropriate health responses to the threat of infectious diseases affecting the poor.

Addressing health-related issues of sustainable development

Poverty and infectious diseases are fundamental impediments to sustainable development. The journal’s scope was set to cover relevant indicators from the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for 2015, which were still in place at the time the journal was launched, and those from the succeeding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.

By directly targeting the SDGs, we aim to identify research gaps in SDG-related policy formulation and implementation. Addressing the goals ensures that the journal remains relevant to the spheres of policy and practice that are intervening on these issues, and increases its real world impact.

The most relevant SDGs to the journal’s scope are clearly SDG 1: No Poverty, SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being, and SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. But in line with the One World–One Health approach, indicators we focus on are not limited to those strictly health-related Goals, but also cover broader issues such as climate change, urbanisation, economics, and others addressed by the SDGs.

Advocating for transdisciplinary research and public health action

Infectious Diseases of Poverty publishes original and empirical interdisciplinary research. The journal boasts 37 thematic series driving research priorities, 6 cross-journal collections, and 3 article collections further promoting interdisciplinary work. The journal’s important contribution to evidence-based disease control is exemplified by four thematic series related to Covid-19 we organised during the pandemic, and which were cited more than 3,000 times in total.

Advocacy for transdisciplinary research is also achieved through our introduction of new content types. Policy Briefs provide recommendations on the design, formulation, implementation, and evaluation of infectious disease policies, with the aim of improving practice. We also established a new and innovative type of content in the journal: Scoping Review. This type of paper specifically identifies gaps and provides suggestions for future research and public health action. With our efforts, a new guideline on Scoping Review has been developed by the Special Programme on Research and Training on Tropical Diseases (TDR) of the World Health Organization, which has triggered more submissions for Scoping Review.

Making an impact on health and sustainable development

The main impact that I had hoped for with Infectious Diseases of Poverty was to improve public health interventions in poor settings, and thus strengthen the actions supporting SDGs and contribute to sustainable development.

The journal has been successful not only in promoting research on indicators of the SDGs. It also supported and enabled the establishment of an academic network which spans over 5,500 authors from 113 countries, holding 1,766 affiliations, such as the Regional Network on Asian Schistosomiasis and Other Helminth Zoonoses (RNAS+), Institute-based Network on China-Africa Cooperation on Schistosomiasis Elimination (INCAS), Institute-based Network on China-Africa Cooperation on Malaria Elimination (INCAM), and others. The journal provides accessible publishing opportunities to researchers who are often marginalised by academic publishing, particularly those from African countries.

Importantly, the journal is engaging the scientific community of infectious disease researchers and promoting capacity building for young scientists on the One World—One Health approach. We organised six international workshops to support researchers in developing their writing skills. Further, the IDEA Forum – Lessons from Authors (IDEA stands for Idea, Design, Editing, Article) is a series of online webinars presented by journal authors who share their research findings and stories, directly interacting with audiences and readers worldwide. Until now, 10 IDEA Forums have been arranged and attracted millions of online readers.

Moving forward, we hope to enlarge the scope of Infectious Diseases of Poverty and further our understanding of One World—One Health. We also plan to create more opportunities to engage young scientists worldwide. And above all, to continue supporting sustainable development.

It has been my honour to stand at the helm of Infectious Diseases of Poverty, a journal that is making an impact on the research community as well as policy and practice. Clearly addressing the relevant SDGs while promoting a broad, holistic approach to health, Infectious Diseases of Poverty is an important voice in accelerating the achievement of the SDGs.

Want to find out more about initiatives that make journals more accessible, impactful, and inclusive? Check out the 2023 Celebrating Editorial Impact event, which showcased contributions from Springer Nature editors-in-chief about exciting strategies and projects like the British Dental Journal’s SDG cover series.

For more on publishing to support the SDGs, be sure to check out the recent Spotlight On… event, Publishing for Sustainable Development: Impact Beyond Academia.