Beyond pledges: academic journals in high-income countries can do more to decolonise global health

In the aftermath of the Black Lives Movement, there has been a growing call to decolonise global health towards equity, equality, diversity and inclusiveness (EEDI), especially for black people and other marginalised populations.

Global health still manifests its colonial heritage of white supremacy in the conceptualisation of policies and programmes aimed at reducing health inequalities between high-income countries and low-income and middle-income countries.

The academic community and other actors have pledged reforms towards improved EEDI principles with particular focus on under-representation by black people and other marginalised populations in global health initiatives.

Academic journals should establish internal and collaborative mechanisms to detect and discourage submissions whose authorship and content violate EEDI principles if the relevant editorial pledges to decolonise global health are to be realised…more