A taxonomy of global health: a qualitative analysis at a large academic health sciences centre
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Despite numerous published definitions of global health, both colloquial and academic notions of global health vary widely. We developed a taxonomy of global health for use at one of the largest academic health science universities in North America. This taxonomy should provide a conceptual and organisational framework with which to efficiently align educational programmes and research projects, and to enhance collaboration and strategic planning. Methods The initial phase of this research programme involved data from a variety of sources: postgraduate physician trainee applications to global health programmes and trainee surveys, clinician applications to global health continuing education programmes, minutes of faculty meetings from the School of Public Health Global Health Division Faculty, and stated academic interests and publications of global health faculty. Data were open coded with accepted qualitative methods. Frequencies were noted and inductive analysis was used to develop the taxonomy. Findings Three axes of classifying global health emerged from the data—one practical, one conceptual, and one relational. The practical axis refers to the so-called target or location of global health interventions or activities; these included countries with low or middle incomes traditionally considered so-called international health, and marginalised or vulnerable populations in inner cities, aboriginal peoples, immigrants and refugees, and very low-income groups. The conceptual axis showed disciplinary tensions, for example, the role of technology versus an emphasis on social determinants of health. The varying understandings of notions of justice, equity, equality, and fairness were also prominent. The relational axis focused on partnerships, interdisciplinarity, and inclusion of alternative local and non-traditional perspectives on health issues. Interpretation The concept of global health cannot, and perhaps ought not, be rigidly defined. Our empirically derived taxonomy of global health deserves testing by others, as does its application in the organisation of global health activities at our and other academic health sciences centres. Funding None.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.051 | 0.041 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.019 | 0.017 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.013 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".