HINARI: Providing Global. Access to Health Care. Information. Martha Kirk Swartz, PhD, RN, CPNP, FAAN. Many of us ascribe to a mission of global outreach ...
EDITORIAL
HINARI: Providing Global Access to Health Care Information Martha Kirk Swartz, PhD, RN, CPNP, FAAN Many of us ascribe to a mission of global outreach and service. We strive to accomplish this mission through our international scholarly networks, by creating and sustaining global clinical experiences for ourselves and our students, and through dedicated volunteer and mission work in developing countries throughout the world. The health care publishing industry is, in itself, a global business. To further bridge the ‘‘information divide’’ with underserved areas worldwide, the major publishing houses, as well as other public and private partners, have come together to develop the Health InterNetwork Research Initiative (HINARI). HINARI was launched in 2002 by the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) and has been led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the six largest biomedical publishing companies, including Elsevier Health Sciences. The core elements of the project include content, Internet connectivity, and capacity building. Countries may be eligible for access to the HINARI platform based on the country’s gross national income and inclusion on the UN’s Least Developed Countries List. HINARI also is part of the broader Research4Life initiative (http://www.research4life.org/), which is the collective name for similar programs offering academic and professional content online: Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), and Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI). The goal of HINARI is to reduce the health information gap by ensuring equitable access to scientific information (as well as the technologies to deliver it) for health care providers, researchers, and policy makers in underJ Pediatr Health Care. (2013) 27, 1. 0891-5245/$36.00 Copyright Q 2013 by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2012.09.007
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served areas. Now one of the world’s largest collections of biomedical and health literature, HINARI provides, at little or no cost, access to more than 8500 journals and 7000 e-books to universities, institutes, professional schools, hospitals, government offices, and libraries in more than 100 countries (HINARI Research in Health, 2012). Recently, HINARI unveiled its new Web site, which now can be viewed in six languages, including Arabic and Russian: http://www.who.int/hinari/en/. The effects of HINARI on improving people’s lives can be realized through some of the cases that have been described. For example, Uganda, in Sub-Saharan Africa, was one of numerous countries devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic beginning in the 1980s. Although the prevalence of HIV/AIDS declined as a result of behavioral prevention education, it was the development of antiretroviral drugs in the early 2000s that provided a possible breakthrough in treatment. Around that same time, clinicians and researchers in Uganda began to utilize HINARI as a source of evidence-based health care information to optimize the treatment of HIV/AIDS, as well as malaria and other infectious diseases. Similarly, access to HINARI has expanded the information boundaries for the Bach Mei Medical Centre in Hanoi, Vietnam, by providing much-needed access to biomedical and social science journals. Thus for both of these countries, the HINARI portal has served as a premium source of clinical information. Overall, HINARI provides a comprehensive electronic database that significantly showcases the global dimensions of our work and enhances access to evidencebased, scientific health care information throughout the world. With the continued support of the WHO, the UN, and other public and private partners, this unique information portal will continue to build crosscultural information sharing capacity, bringing us closer to the goal of equitable health care for all people. REFERENCE
HINARI Research in Health. (2012). HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/hinari/en/
January/February 2013
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