A medical journal for the world's health priorities

The editorial published in this week's PLoS Medicine looks back over the 5 years since the journal made its first call for papers and describes a new evidence-based approach to the aims and scope of the journal, which emphasizes the focus of PLoS Medicine on the diseases and risk factors that cause the greatest losses in years of healthy life worldwide.

Taking as its guide several prominent publications that document these diseases and risk factors, in the editorial the editors reaffirm one of the principles that led to the founding of PLoS Medicine: "We remain guided by the conviction that research reports, especially those on work that most affects human health globally, must be available to all, and not restricted by access fees and legal barriers to reuse."

In taking such an approach the editors emphasize the need to look beyond just the biological causes of disease, saying "As the world faces up to the challenges of a changing climate, a turbulent economic system, and continued global conflict, we now wish to reinforce the important place in health research of work that encompasses the social, environmental, and political determinants of health, as well as the biological."

All articles published this week in the journal illustrate these priorities (see below and a separate release on the magazine section for further details). In the research section the following articles are published: Anders Bjorkman and colleagues' trial of rapid diagnostic testing for malaria diagnosis in Zanzibar; Majid Ezzati and colleagues' study of US data on risk factor exposures and disease-specific mortality; and Matthias Egger and colleagues' comparison of mortality rates between African patients starting HIV treatment and the general population. In the magazine section, a Health in Action article by Yibeltal Assefa and colleagues describes scale-up of antiretroviral treatment across Ethiopia, Bruno Marchal and colleagues argue in a Policy Forum that strategies which strengthen health systems are overly selective, and Daniel Reidpath and colleagues use the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) as an example of the potential to neglect equity in the race to achieve the MDGs.

In concluding the editorial the editors say "We believe our new, evidence-based approach will not only ensure that open-access publishing reflects the health priorities of the 21st century, but will also reaffirm and revitalize the long tradition of medical journals leading, rather than following, the debate over research priorities."

Funding: No specific funding supported the production of this article.

Citation: The PLoS Medicine Editors (2009) A Medical Journal for the World's Health Priorities. PLoS Med 6(4): e1000072. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000072

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000072

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-06-04-editorial.pdf

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