Hispanic Latin America, Spain and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean: A rich source of reference material for public health, epidemiology and tropical medicine

Abstract

There is a multiplicity of journals originating in Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (SSLAC) in the health sciences of relevance to the fields of epidemiology and public health. While the subject matter of epidemiology in Spain shares many features with its neighbours in Western Europe, many aspects of epidemiology in Latin America are particular to that region. There are also distinctive theoretical and philosophical approaches to the study of epidemiology and public health arising from traditions such as the Latin American social medicine movement, of which there may be limited awareness. A number of online bibliographic databases are available which focus primarily on health sciences literature arising in Spain and Latin America, the most prominent being Literatura Latinoamericana en Ciencias de la Salud (LILACS) and LATINDEX. Some such as LILACS also extensively index grey literature. As well as in Spanish, interfaces are provided in English and Portuguese. Abstracts of articles may also be provided in English with an increasing number of journals beginning to publish entire articles written in English. Free full text articles are becoming accessible, one of the most comprehensive sources being the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). There is thus an extensive range of literature originating in Spain and SSLAC freely identifiable and often accessible online, and with the potential to provide useful inputs to the study of epidemiology and public health provided that any reluctance to explore these resources can be overcome. In this article we provide an introduction to such resources.

Bibliometric analysis of leishmaniasis research in Medline (1945-2010)

“…Leishmaniasis is endemic in North Africa, France and Brazil [1], which might explain the prevalence of these languages with respect to others. For instance, the geographic distribution of the disease is important with the publication language about the disease [26]. For this, reviewing the journals in the original language of geographical distribution of the diseases is interesting.…”

La publicación multilíngüe, una evolución necesaria para la difusión del conocimiento

“…Es necesario explicitar que no se trata de la publicación multilingüe acostumbrada, donde el mismo texto está escrito y traducido en dos o más idiomas, no, esta es una iniciativa para promover también, el aprendizaje del Español como idioma nativo de la revista, y fomentar dentro de la comunidad científica de acogida, la lectura en otras lenguas bajo el ansia del saber científico, en beneficio de la reducción de la brecha de accesibilidad idiomática existente en este momento histórico. Esta novedad en la política editorial se propone acoger investigaciones y experiencias de este tipo en Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y de la Educación, abrir un nuevo espacio donde estudiosos de otras latitudes divulguen sus aportes al conocimiento en estas áreas, de igual manera, pretende, cambiar la perspectiva que ha considerado como valor secundario las publicaciones en español y en portugués (Gibbs, 1995;Stolerman & Stenius, 2008;Williams, Bórquez, & Basáñez, 2008); y favorecer la visibilidad del conocimiento publicado en ésta revista científica.…”

MULTILINGUAL PUBLICATION AS A LEGITIMATE TOOL TO INCREASE ACCESS TO SCIENCE (English translated version)

“…A major argument for multilingual publication is the fact that science from secondary countries needs to be more visible. Several papers have discussed hidden or "lost" science: valuable research in secondary languages such as Spanish or Portuguese which is commonly ignored in systematic reviews and not even read by scientists (Gibbs, 1995;Stolerman & Stenius, 2008;Williams, Bórquez, & Basáñez, 2008). Although English is the major language for scientific communication, knowledge should have no single language.…”