Global theme issue on poverty and human development

Article Outline

• Copyright

Applied Nursing Research (ANR) is proud to participate in the Council of Science Editors (CSE) October 2007 Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development. Hundreds of journals from the global scientific community have participated in this initiative. Many are publishing original research, editorials, opinion pieces, and commentaries, but all of the participating journals have agreed to focus on this important topic, toward the goals of raising awareness and stimulating interest and research.

The articles featured in this issue are important to the local, national, and global debate about poverty and human development. There are two original research articles, two clinical methods reports, and one research brief published here.

In the first research article, Wetta-Hall describes the impact of a collaborative nurse/social work intervention on emergency department (ED) use and health status among a low-income, uninsured population. There was a significant reduction in ED use with the intervention, resulting in a substantial cost savings. The second research report, by McInerney et al., describes the research team's work in South Africa, which assessed determinants of antituberculosis medication adherence. Both of these studies, although conducted in different parts of the globe, have relevance to global health, poverty, and human development and help us to understand different aspects of the issues.

In the first clinical methods article, Artinian, Denison, and Nordstrom delineate the challenges in contacting low-income individuals by telephone to participate in research. These researchers found that older women who were not working were easier to reach by telephone. In the second article in this section, Cricco-Lizza examines racial and cultural dimensions underlying breast-feeding in the United States, particularly among low-income groups, and recommends trust-generating strategies to effect change in behaviors. Fukuoka, Rankin, and Carroll present a research brief in which they report factors related to systematic bias in income responses among elderly patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease. They recommend attention to this bias in future research.

Elsevier, publisher of ANR, has agreed to make these key contributions available to the scientific community through open access. Open access makes the material freely available on the Internet, which will inform not only the scientific community of the work of nurse scientists but also the general public of the important issues of poverty and human development. ANR readers will benefit both from our participation in this CSE initiative and, most importantly, from the articles published related to the poverty and human development theme. Please join me in thanking the authors for their insights and for their scientific work in this key area of nursing research.