Leading Journal Honors Carters’ Public Health Legacy

The foremost journal of tropical medicine in the United States has published a supplement honoring the public health legacy of former President Jimmy Carter and the late First Lady Rosalynn Carter. In a demonstration of technical expertise and the respect The Carter Center carries in that field, the supplement features 16 articles authored or co-authored by Carter Center experts

The peer-reviewed articles have been posted ahead of print online on the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene website throughout 2024 and are being published together in a single supplement to highlight the material’s richness, depth, and diversity of impact, said Dr. Kashef Ijaz, vice president of health programs at The Carter Center.

“We at The Carter Center are extraordinarily pleased to be featured in such a meaningful way by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene,” Ijaz said. “President and Mrs. Carter were pioneers and exemplars in global health as well as many other important fields, and it is a privilege to follow in their footsteps. We thank the society for this recognition and collaboration.”

The AJTMH, established in 1921, is among the top-ranked tropical medicine journals in the world, publishing original scientific articles and the latest findings. Two or more supplements on topics of special interest are published annually. The Carter Center supplement, which will be published Sept. 4, is unusual in that it focuses on a contributor rather than a topic.

The supplement’s guest editor was Mark L. Eberhard, a well-known global health researcher and practitioner who recently retired from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In an editorial, Eberhard recognizes the Carters’ “longstanding and tireless contributions to public health.

Countries that have received Carter Center health program assistance past and present are represented in light blue above.

“The Carters did not just talk the talk, they walked the walk,” Eberhard writes. “For decades, they made repeated trips to affected countries, stopping not only in the capital cities to meet and engage state leaders, but traveling (often with those same leaders) to remote affected communities where they were able to see firsthand the difficulties and accomplishments of various programs.”

Topics in the supplement cover a wide range of current Carter Center health programming — Guinea worm disease, mental health, river blindness, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, and the Hispaniola Initiative to eliminate malaria and lymphatic filariasis from Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The articles describe important programmatic interventions, research, and clinical studies conducted by Carter Center experts, partners, ministries of health, and national programs in the course of helping to end or avert suffering for millions of people on multiple continents. Here are a few examples:

  • An analysis of factors influencing community engagement as Guinea worm and polio near elimination in Chad
  • A look at how the blood responds to signs of trachoma infection
  • A study of whether people in certain parts of Uganda believe that river blindness was eliminated where they live
  • A national survey of knowledge and attitudes toward mental disorders in Liberia
  • Results of surveys testing for transmission of lymphatic filariasis and malaria in Haiti
  • These articles shed light on key issues in tropical medicine, furthering the scientific community’s understanding and contributing significantly to research. The peer review process ensures that the research methods are sound and the conclusions are valid.
  1. The Carter Center's Dr. Frank Richards, right, receives congratulations upon being named an honorary traditional chief in Abia state, Nigeria, in 2017. Richards was honored for his leadership fighting diseases that plagued the people there. (Photo: The Carter Center/ R. McDowall)

The Carter Center’s Dr. Frank Richards coordinated the execution of the supplement as one of his final acts before retiring this summer. Richards spent 25 years at the Center, most of them as director of its River Blindness Elimination Program, Lymphatic Filariasis Elimination Program, Schistosomiasis Control Program, and Malaria Control Program. Considered a leading global researcher of those diseases, he is a longtime member of the ASTMH and has had numerous articles published in the AJTMH and other journals.

Here are links to each article in the AJTMH supplement:

As of this writing, the following article had been accepted for publication in the supplement but not yet posted on the journal’s website:

  • A National Survey of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice Towards Mental, Neurological, and Substance Use Disorders in Liberia