What is Global Health Reciprocal Innovations (GHRI)?
Not a lot of people have heard of the acronym GHRI, which stands for global health reciprocal innovation. Therefore, we, at the UAB Center for AIDS Research, wanted to share with our members, potential participants, and others interested on our views on GHRI.
In our view, the focus of GHRI is less on cutting-edge innovation and more on reciprocal or bidirectional learning to address common health challenges across geographical areas using implementable solutions. For our pilot grants program, applicants are required to use a team science approach that includes investigators from both the U.S. and a low and middle-income country (LMIC), even if the focus of the project is on tackling a health challenge in only one setting. In that way, we hope to promote the spread of ideas and best practices.
Reciprocity is also cardinal to GHRI though we acknowledge it may be hard to measure and/or quantify this concept. The goal is to avoid colonial practices in global health and promote equity in partnerships between investigators and institutions, a sentiment part of decolonizing global health. For example, if a technology was developed in the U.S. and is now being evaluated in an African location, how could knowledge gained from the evaluation inform health back in the U.S. too? Could the technology be further adapted for U.S. populations living in rural areas for example. If a program in an African location is being adapted for use in Alabama, how does this help to address health challenges back in the original location? What are the program designers in African locations gaining by translating their work to the U.S.? In our pilot program, applicants should explain how both U.S. and LMIC partners and populations may benefit from the program.
Reciprocity in global health is especially topical right now in the U.S. There is strong need to demonstrate to people how international collaborations benefit local populations back in the U.S. We see it as a high priority those projects using GHRI approaches to address local U.S. challenges through spreading ideas and innovations from LMICs.