In a conversation with a friend (a well qualified epidemiologist, who trained at one of the top institutions in the world and is currently based at an institution in Africa), he acknowledged the power imbalances present in global health, describing his position of local research coordinator as a so-called glorified data collector. Through a deep […]
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Black Lives Matter and Women in Global Health movements, and ongoing calls to decolonise global health have all created space for uncomfortable but important conversations that reveal serious asymmetries of power and privilege that permeate all aspects of global health.In this article, we, a diverse, gender-balanced group of […]
Primary data collection in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) is associated with a range of ethical complexities. Considerations on how to adequately ensure the well-being of research staff are largely neglected in contemporary ethics discourse. This systematic review aims to identify the ethical challenges that research staff across different hierarchical levels and scientific disciplines face […]
To promote social justice and equity, global health research should meaningfully engage communities throughout projects: from setting agendas onwards. But communities, especially those that are considered disadvantaged or marginalised, rarely have a say in the priorities of the research projects that aim to help them. So far, there remains limited ethical guidance and resources on how […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has so far revealed that the virus (SARS-CoV-2) does not only infect, weaken, and highlight weaknesses in human biological systems, but also the structural weaknesses of health systems at international and national levels. In this paper we examine the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa through a decolonization lens. Keeping in mind that there are […]
While the idea of decolonizing global health has gained prominence recently, it is not new. Discussions about the impact of the colonial legacy on health systems began with the end of the colonial system. A discussion among academics, activists, health practitioners, and others, that is taking on new urgency, as actors look to identify and […]
The field of Health Policy System Research (HPSR) offers us valuable theorisations and empirical work to guide us on how we can engage with the complex social, economic and political nature of health systems today. However, the field has not been able to fully grapple with the blind spots that are ever present in our reality. […]
This problem of consulting malpractice is merely one facet of a larger issue of how global health, even today, is still colonial in many ways, and how high-income country experts and institutions are valued much more than expertise in low- and middle-income countries. This article makes suggestions on how global health consulting can be decolonised. Pai M (2019) 10 […]
In a Viewpoint in the Lancet, experiences of censorship in donor-funded evaluation research were shared. The authors warned about a potential trend in which donors and their implementing partners use ethical and methodological arguments to undermine research. Reactions to the Viewpoint—and lively debate at the 2018 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research—suggest that similar experiences are common in implementation […]
No one likes a parachute researcher: the one who drops into a country, makes use of the local infrastructure, personnel, and patients, and then goes home and writes an academic paper for a prestigious journal. This Lancet article suggests some ways in which this can be avoided and some of the ethical issues associated with […]