Wider Worlds of Research for Health Equity: Public Health NGOs as Stakeholders in Open Access Ecosystems

Abstract

This article examines research uses and knowledge stakeholder politics that emerged in an exploratory study of the relevance of open access policies to a spectrum of U.S.-based public health non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This study demonstrated the clear relevance to public health NGOs of open access to peer-reviewed articles, as one form of community informatics. Though not always visible to those oriented toward academic knowledge ecosystems, public health NGOs utilize and conduct a wide range of research, both peer-reviewed and otherwise. Hence, findings indicate that public health NGOs should be more fully recognized, by researchers and policymakers in other contexts, as key stakeholders in knowledge, research, and open access ecosystems. These findings contribute to examination of community information seeking and use in the public health field, with an eye to leveraging community informatics on behalf of health equity.