Our infancy period

O n June 1st Global Health Action passed the landmark of its first year of publishing and we would like to mark this occasion not only by looking back upon the achievements so far but also to share with you our plans for the future. When we launched the journal with the aim of publishing high-quality research on global health issues with special emphasis on action, only a few open access journals existed in the field despite the fact that the digital divide in health information is as serious as any other inequity in health. To make all content freely available online was therefore an easy choice and the number of visits to the website (www.globalhealthaction. net) as well as full-text article downloads bears witness to the interest worldwide in global health issues. Since the launch a year ago the website has been accessed by more than 10,000 visitors from 155 countries in every continent , many of them returning to the site. The number of full-text downloads has been picking up as more and more articles have been published and is now almost 3,000 per month. With no restrictions on copying or printing content for educational purposes, many more may in fact have read the articles published so far in the journal. In our inaugural editorial (1) we called for papers addressing the foundations of health research (health information), the underlying epidemiological causes (health determinants), actions for health and their effects (health interventions), the impact of the global physical and biological changes (environmental change and health), and gender perspectives in health care (health systems and gender). Our aim was then, and continues to be, to. contribute to bridging the health information gap;. foster cross-cultural comparative studies to better understand health transitions;. document best practices from local action-oriented work;. publish good predictive evidence linking climate change to health outcomes; and. undertake empirical assessments of how health systems perform in different countries. During our first year we published four editorials, two reviews, 12 original articles, one short communication, and one supplement. Editorials have addressed the global agenda on aging, the potentials of the epi-demographic network INDEPTH at its 10th anniversary (www.in depth-network.org), and the impact of climate change in low and middle-income countries. The 12 original articles published in Global Health Action were on maternal health care planning and local intervention strategies and their policy implications, documented surveys on health services …