de Th\ue9, Guy

Hamilton, Richard

Roy, Claude

Bioline International

J HEALTH POPUL NUTR    2006 Mar;24(1):6-7 © 2006 ICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population ResearchISSN 1606-0997        $ 5.00+0.20EDITORIALA Strategy to Enhance the Global Research Effort inMaternal and Child Health: The Mother-ChildInternational Research NetworkCorrespondence and reprint requests should be addressed to:Richard HamiltonEmeritus ProfessorMontreal Children's HospitalMcGill University2300 Tupper StreetMontreal, QuebecCanada H3H 1P3Email: Richard.Hamilton@muhc.mcgill.caIn many industrialized countries, the health research efforthas been greatly energized by the success of researchinstitutes or centres of excellence. Unfortunately, suchinstitutions are few and far between in the developingworld where the burden of disease is high, where aspiringscientists often work in isolation, and where researchproductivity is disproportionately weak (1). The Mother-Child Health International Research Network attemptsto deploy modern communications technology to pro-vide scientists everywhere but particularly those work-ing in low-income countries with access to scientificdiscussion, critical debate, and opportunities for colla-boration. This effort to create a virtual research institutefocuses on maternal and child health because of theparticularly high-persisting levels of mortality and mor-bidity among mothers and young children in most low-income countries.Experience has shown the benefits of bringing talentedscientists together in centres  where their creativity andproductivity feed off  the constant scientific discoursein which they are immersed. Nowadays, health scientistsworking alone rarely succeed, no matter how rich  theirtalent and resources are. In the developing world, thoseresearchers have tended to quit research out of frustra-tion or to move to research centres in the industrializedworld__a migration which parallels the recently-docu-mented flow of physicians from poor to rich countries(2). Sizeable  research centres in the developing worldare exceptionally rare. Successful examples includeICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population Researchin Bangladesh__an international centre (1), and a natio-nal centre in Tanzania, the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre (3). Neither the resources nor thewill to build additional actual institutions of relevantresearch excellence are apparent in many low-incomecountries where these are needed. In consultation withscientists working in these regions, we proposed thatmodern communications technology might providemany of the benefits of institutes like those in Bangladeshand Tanzania, but at a small fraction of their costs.  It was under the aegis of the InterAcademy Panel ofthe world's scientific academies that discussions wereinitiated in 1998 from which the concept of this networkevolved. Because of its focus on health sciences, thatrelationship has shifted to the InterAcademy Medical Panelof these academies. An account of the early developmentof the Network was published recently by de Thé andZetterström (4). A critical step in this development hasbeen the implementation of an easily-accessed website__www.mother-child.org. Funded originally by a grantfrom the NRG Foundation of the Institut de France,Académie des Sciences, it is now supported by theCanadian Institutes for Health Research Global HealthResearch Initiative. Steven Mansour, the current web-master, has just completed an extensive revision of thesite. It is functioning in English, French, and Spanish,access is free, annual maintenance costs are very low,and the site is secure.The website continues to evolve in consultation withits users. It provides updated scientific news items anda mechanism to support distance-learning projects, suchas a proposed course in scientific writing, involving theAfrican Academy of Sciences. Its two key functions area weblog facility which encourages involved scientiststo post and respond to 'blogs' whether they are next dooror on the other side of the world, and an organized direc-tory of mother-child health scientists committed to in-ternational activities. Registration in this directorynecessitates that a researcher provide a brief account ofhis or her research interests and activities; the directorywill be categorized according to those interests and acti-7The mother-child international research networkvities. As the list grows, the level of scientist-to-scientistinteraction should expand with the expectation that suchdiscourse will spawn new collaborative research, men-toring, and research training in many parts of the world,and a growing presence of influential scientists in theseregions. We expect an early emphasis on nutritional andcontagious disorders since these are two key determinantsof morbidity and mortality among children and mothersin low-income countries.For the Network to fulfill its potential, it is essentialnow that a critical mass of committed scientists registeron www.mother-child.org. The numbers are growing withabout 400 daily visits and more than 100 researchersregistered on the site, but a critical mass of at least 500active scientists from both rich and poor countries isneeded. Altruism alone will not drive this process. Busyscientists are unlikely to register unless they perceivesome benefits to themselves in doing so. Of such benefitsthere can be no doubt. Among these are free secure accessto a research-oriented weblog facility for easy discus-sion of scientific ideas or findings, exposure to a wideinternational audience, recognition of new opportunitiesfor linkages, and access to novel concepts and new datajust as one might experience in a research seminar.  Progress is being made in improving the deplorablemother and child health statistics in the poor regions ofthe world but much more must be done. Real advancesare unlikely to be sustained without a significant, rele-vant local scientific base in the countries where thesestatistics prevail. The Mother-Child Health InternationalResearch Network is one possible constructive inter-vention to support such a base. What remains is for thescientific community to become involved with a com-mitment to make the project work. The first step in thatcommitment is to register on www.mother-child.org.REFERENCES1. Hamilton R. The need for centers of health researchexcellence in the developing world. Policy Sci 1997;30:25-46.2. Mullan F. The metrics of the physician brain drain.N Engl J Med 2005;353:1810-8.3. Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre.(http://www.ihrdc.org, accessed on 11 April 2006).4. de Thé G, Zetterström R. Mother-child health research(IRN-MCH): achievements and prospects of an in-ternational network. Acta Paediatr 2005;94:964-7.Richard Hamilton1, Claude Roy2, andGuy de Thé31Montreal Children's HospitalMcGill University2300 Tupper StreetMontreal, QuebecCanada H3Z 1Z52Université de Montréal, Montreal3Institut Pasteur, Paris, InterAcademy Medical Panel

A Strategy to Enhance the Global Research Effort in Maternal and Child Health: The Mother-Child International Research Network

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