In March, the IH section asked members to vote on which global health topics are most important to them in order to make our bi-monthly section-wide calls more relevant to membership. We sent out a section-wide e-mail with a link to an online poll and received 167 responses by April 1.
Three topics came in with most votes overall: infectious diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, pandemics, with 81 votes; health systems strengthening, with 79 votes; and maternal, neonatal, and child health and nutrition, with 78 votes. Among these, infectious diseases received the most votes (15%) among all first choice topics, and this topic was also ranked highly among people’s second and third choices. Among other first choices for GH topics, ‘new topic’ came in second, and health and human rights’ came in third with 11%. Among second topic choices, health and human rights shared second place with community-based primary health care and improved metrics, research, monitoring and evaluation.
We also had 50 new GH topics suggested. While there was no clear consensus about priorities among these, a text pattern analysis revealed preferences for equity and inequities, social determinants of health, and community, sanitation, and prevention. Thanks to everyone who voted, and to Eckhard Kleinau for organizing the results.
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