With this issue the Christian Journal for Global Health enters its thirteenth year of publication. We are pleased to now be published by the Global Health Institute at William Carey International University. We welcome an increasing flow of submissions with most coming from low- and middle-income countries. The editors are grateful for the growing number of faithful and generous reviewers who give of their time and talents to assess submissions and to offer suggestions for their improvement. Artificial intelligence is a new challenge facing the editors. We ask authors to disclose if they have used it for data gathering or in writing their submission. There is no doubt AI can be helpful for grammar and English usage corrections, but it is imperative that the content be original.
There are seven original research submissions in this issue. Josephine Namyalo, and her colleagues studied the prevalence and factors associated with intimate partner violence directed toward pregnant women occurring in Northern Uganda. Josephina Ochoa studied the effects on family life of stress incurred by forced relocation of families in the Philippines, finding that moderate stress could contribute positively to resilience. Henry Sseguya and his colleagues investigated connections between religiosity and substance use among Christian university students in Uganda. Cherry Ann Chagyowen studied the emotional and psychological challenges facing student nurses in the Philippines. Revathi Subramanian and Sampath Ravindran investigated the relationships between the caring behaviors of nurses and the quality of their professional experiences in a private mission hospital in South India. Andrew Theisz and his colleagues analyzed themes from a recent study that putatively disposes crosscultural healthcare missionaries to moral injury. As might be surmised from the above, the journal receives relatively few submissions of laboratory investigations. The journal has no policy regarding this, but we would look for biomedical science submissions with global health implications. In this issue Ukam Uno-Ubarei Uno and his colleagues at the University of Calabar in Nigeria looked at the protective role of vitamin C against the effects of lead on organs and testicles in male albino rats, finding that this could be an accessible and low-cost agent for use in humans exposed to lead as an adjunct to clinical and environmental lead surveillance practices.
Teaching children with multiple disabilities is complex, requiring attention to a combination of instructional, emotional, and physical demands. Understanding how this is to be done where there is resource limitation requires special study. Rheamy Baliber-Duallo describes a case study of this in the Philippines.
This issue has three systematic reviews on a range of subjects. The journal editors require literature reviews that are truly systematic and that provide a PRISMA diagram (https://www.prisma-statement.org/) and methods that fully describes the process by which the literature is assessed. We also restrict such submissions to subjects that address issues of global health significance. The first is our initial publication of the application of bibliographic mapping, a research approach that studies how the scientific literature around a particular subject is developing. Fotarisman Zaluchu and his colleagues have investigated the literature on maternal care for women with disabilities. Khaled Abdel-sater did a multidisciplinary systematic review describing the epidemiologic and physiologic effect of cold climate exposure on the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Allen Xiao and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne reviewed evidence of how caregivers influenced the developmental outcomes of children with disabilities in India. Oyebode Dosunmu, and colleagues reviewed trialed and recommended interventions to address medical administration errors in Nigerian and Indonesian hospitals with global applications.
Three commentaries look at artificial intelligence (AI), shame, and climate effects from a Christian perspective. Reuben Laguitan argues that the Christian principles of stewardship, justice, and God’s image in humans provide a framework for a cautious AI adoption in global health. World-wide, shame plays important, yet complicated, roles at both the individual and society level. While acknowledging constructive roles for shame, Rebecca Bates describes how Christian faith offers remedies for unjust and damaging consequences as well as restraint for oppressive applications of it. John and Geraldine Torres argue for changes in international law and policy that acknowledge the injustice faced by people who are displaced from their homes due to climate change.
Short reports are an opportunity to inform readers of programs, events, or perspectives that are relevant even if not scholarly rigorous. They are reviewed by the editors for their global health relevance and credibility. Eman Gharu describes a month-long orthopedic experience in a mission hospital serving a tribal area, emphasizing how a need for trauma care can be met creatively in this setting, even when the requirements are fairly sophisticated. Jonathan Emmady, and colleagues give a collective account of student volunteers’ experience during a ten-day medical mission to Uganda. Gnanaraj Jesudian, Erica Janszen, and Nagulan describe, first a laparoscopic technique that does not require gas insufflation and second, use of a laptop cystoscope that requires little external power. Both approaches are described as environmentally friendly and cost-effective. Sanico presents a persuasive account of a family’s approach to cancer survivorship which seeks to enhance outcomes consistent with cited literature and biblical wisdom. Finally, Vinay Oommen contributes a fictional parable as a satire provocatively entitled, “Heal the sick, but not too much.”
The journal has been receiving an avalanche of poetry submissions of which seven have been selected for publication, which we hope you will find inspiring and challenging. We need to limit these to quality poems clearly in the scope of the journal and related to global health. The editors are indebted to Sarah Larkin for her help with reviewing these submissions and offer our regrets at being unable to publish all that we receive.
The editors call attention to the recent call for papers on Trauma Healing and the Healthcare Context of Violence, and encourage you to pass this along. We are just getting through a season of reflection on the importance of the Divine incarnation, exemplary healing, vicarious suffering, and triumphant resurrection of the Son of Man. May these papers display the face of the One by whose stripes we are healed.