HIFA (Healthcare Information For All) is a global campaign working to save lives and reduce suffering by improving the availability and use of reliable healthcare information. Our goal is universal access to reliable healthcare information: a world where every person, every health worker and every policymaker has access to the information they need to protect their own health and the health of others. Universal access to reliable healthcare information would help prevent millions of deaths every year.
Universal access to reliable healthcare information
Universal access to reliable healthcare information means that every person and every health worker has access to the healthcare information they need to protect their own health and the health of others. By definition, such information should be:
- accurate and up-to-date;
- unbiased and it should reflect, as far as possible, the cumulative evidence based on robust research;
- in the appropriate language and format, and at the right technical level;
- relevant and applicable to the person’s immediate situation (which is always changing).
Every person should also be empowered to differentiate reliable healthcare information from the barrage of misinformation that does not fulfil these criteria.
The concept of universal access to reliable healthcare information includes past as well as current access. What matters is that every person has the reliable healthcare knowledge they need to inform their health decisions. The vast majority of healthcare decisions (whether by the general public, health workers or policymakers) are made on the basis of past exposure to information, which (as with current exposure) may be reliable or unreliable.
Note: HIFA's definition of universal access to reliable healthcare information does not imply that all information should be open access. Open access can be an enabler of access to reliable information (and indeed misinformation) but it is neither a prerequisite nor sufficient for meeting information needs.
HIFA's purpose: to strengthen the global evidence ecosystem
The HIFA goal can only be achieved by strengthening the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA does this by promoting communication (through HIFA forums), understanding (through HIFA projects) and advocacy among all stakeholders, in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO). HIFA has more than 20,000 members in 180 countries representing every part of the global evidence ecosystem.
HIFA aims to strengthen the global evidence ecosystem by addressing three intrinsic weaknesses in the system, identified in a paper in The Lancet in 2004: poor communication among stakeholders in the system; poor understanding of information needs and how to meet them; and a profound lack of advocacy for universal access to reliable healthcare information as a global health issue. HIFA supports communication through global discussion forums in multiple languages; and it builds understanding through a range of sponsored projects (in-depth explorations of priority topics). HIFA's forums and projects together provide the basis for evidence-informed advocacy for universal access (see HIFA organisational structure below).
Clearly HIFA cannot address this enormous challenge alone but we CAN do it through collaboration. That is why we are working in official relations with the World Health Organization; why we have successfully advocated for official policy statements from the world's doctors (see World Medical Association statement) and the world's library and information professionals (see International Federation of Library Associations statement); and official endorsements from 400 supporting organisations worldwide. We are actively seeking similar policy statements from other professional groups such as the world's medical journal editors, and from the World Health Organization.
Note: HIFA's primary purpose is to strengthen the global evidence ecosystem as above. It is not to provide healthcare information per se, although such information is incidentally shared among members on our forums. We also have a secondary remit to promote the work of reliable healthcare information providers such as WHO.
HIFA Organisational structure
HIFA is administered by the Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-registered non-governmental organisation in official relations with WHO since 2022.
Notes
- The HIFA Steering Group is an informal group of HIFA volunteers who provide technical guidance on the implementation of HIFA activities
- HIFA has more than 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting on five Forums in four languages
- CHIFA focuses on child health and rights and is jointly administered with the International Child Health Group and the International Society for Social Paediatrics and Child Health
- Projects are sponsored, in-depth explorations of priority topics
- Partners are organisations that provide practical support (financial or technical), including donations and sponsorship of Projects and other activities
- HIFA operations (Forums, Projects, Advocacy) are enabled by a series of volunteer working groups (Partnerships and Projects; WHO Collaboration; Social Media; Fundraising…)
- GHI-net/HIFA is in official relations with the World Health Organization, with an agreed HIFA-WHO Collaboration Plan 2025-7 to accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information
- 400 Supporting Organisations have officially endorsed the HIFA vision of universal access to reliable healthcare information.