Dear Joseph,
"thank you for sharing this exciting, educative, inspiring and satisfying outcome of the global survey"
Yes indeed, and thanks to you and everyone who participated and supported the survey.
"We from Nigeria are really proud to list in the ‘Top four countries’. Not surprised anyway!"
Here is the breakdown for top 10 countries by IP address:
US 225 IPs (9.63%)
UK 199 IPs (8.52%)
Brazil 176 IPs (7.53%)
Nigeria 148 IPs (6.33%)
Greece 122 IPs (5.22%)
Ethiopia 101 IPs (4.32%)
Canada 100 IPs (4.28%)
Honduras 85 IPs (3.64%)
Australia 75 IPs (3.21%)
India 67 IPs (2.87%)
The positions of US, UK and Nigeria are not surprising, as you say, as these countries are also the top 3 most represented on the HIFA membership (US: 1430, UK: 1928, Nigeria: 1611 members).
The above contains one or two surprises. For example, I'm not sure why Greece has featured so highly, as we have very few members in that country. One possibility is differing levels of publicity in each country. For example, the World Medical Association informed national medical associations about the survey, and some of these may have been more effective than others in publicising to their members.
The high showing of a small country - Honduras - is almost certainly thanks to one person: Jackeline Alger, our lead moderator for HIFA-Spanish and a powerful advocate for HIFA in Honduras and across the Americas.
"I can’t wait for further releases and publication of the full report to in due course."
We are now working with Digital Medic at Stanford University and IFLA Evidence for Global and Disaster Health to analyse the results, and the final report will be available in early January 2024.
In the meantime I would like to emphasise that this consultation comprises not only the survey (now closed) but *also* the current discussion here on the HIFA forums (open through to 31 December). The inputs from our discussions will be synthesised with the survey findings to provide a full picture around the brooad themes:
1. How important is access to reliable healthcare information?
2. What should be done to improve access to reliable healthcare information?
3. What should WHO do to accelerate progress?
4. What should HIFA do to accelerate progress?)
Here again are the detailed questions: https://www.hifa.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdf/HIFA-Survey.pdf
Please email your thoughts on any question(s) to the forum here: hifa@hifaforums.org
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
