The Emerging Health Threats Forum was established with support from the UK’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) to fill the need for an authoritative, independent, research-based information service that makes its resources available on an open access basis, and concentrates on identifying and assessing emerging health threats.
The Forum will make a significant contribution to global health protection for three principal reasons:
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It has access to the very best scientific expertise through its close association with the HPA and its specialist divisions. The HPA also provides close links with comparable institutions around the world.
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It brings together all the elements necessary to help policymakers reach informed decisions about emerging threats, including original research, a global network to identify and track emerging threats, and the latest information on disaster preparedness and crisis management.
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It provides early, objective, and research-based information for the international business community, and it will enable corporations to reach balanced risk assessments and to minimise potential disruption to their operations and risk to their personnel.
All of this is provided on an open access basis — a vital prerequisite for maximising health protection in the developing world.
As new health challenges arise, the Forum’s mission will be to ensure early recognition, and thereby, appropriate resource allocation and global preparedness by governments, and at corporate and public levels.
A key objective is to establish the correct balance between the natural tendency of governments to downplay and the media to overplay emerging threats.
The Forum’s services include:
A peer-reviewed, academic journal
The Emerging Health Threats Journal is an international, peer-reviewed journal publishing the latest and best research on emerging threats to human health. Its focus is threats from any source, including the environment, chemicals, radiation, pathogens, and society. It welcomes papers on the preparedness and response to natural or man-made disasters, including those that involve the deliberate release of chemical, biological, or radionuclear material. Content will be determined by novelty and scope of the threat, and by scientific excellence. The Journal welcomes investigative studies that promote the understanding of factors involved in the emergence, prevention, and elimination of health threats. Articles on lessons learned from disaster and crisis response are particularly encouraged. The Journal seeks high-quality submissions from academic, industrial, clinical practice, public health, and government research and planning sectors across all of these areas.
The Emerging Health Threats Journal will be published online, open access, with no charges to authors or readers. Papers will be deposited in UK PubMedCentral. ISSN 1752-8550.
News service
Our daily service publishes articles and aggregates news from the best academic journals and international sources. It critically reviews the latest research, enabling clinicians, scientists, and other public-health officials to access up-to-date intelligence on emerging health threats. The ability to comment on news articles is central to the Forum.
Risk assessment for the international business community
The Emerging Health Threats Monitor is a weekly newsletter for the international business community. It distils the latest scientific research and health-risk intelligence into a form and language appropriate for a serious but non-scientific audience. Edited news articles from the previous week are included with updates on serious outbreaks of fatal diseases from around the world, including the latest avian influenza situation.
Information resources
An A–Z of Health Threats is being developed as a wiki, encouraging clinicians, scientists, and public-health officials to provide information on emerging hazards to human health. Conferences and Meetings are listed along with the Funding and Grants for research into emerging health threats. Links to and descriptions of major organisations, and national and international public health institutions are provided.
A community message board
We hope to create a vibrant Forum of professional readers exchanging information and opinions. Our goal is to have an active message board of stimulating debate about all emerging health threats. To build this community, we offer the ability to comment on news articles. We hope that discussions will start, and readers will come back and post their thoughts regularly.
