On this interview we communicate with Rubeena Zakar PLOS ONE’s new part editor for Ladies’s and Maternal well being. Right here she discusses her necessary analysis and work with PLOS ONE. Dr. Rubeena Zakar is presently professor of Public Well being and Director of the Institute of Social and Cultural Research, College of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. She earned her Bachelor of Drugs and Bachelor of Surgical procedure (MBBS) from Sindh Medical School, Karachi College, Grasp’s in Inhabitants Sciences from Punjab College (2006); and Ph.D in Public Well being from Bielefeld College, Germany (2012) with distinction (Summa cum laude).
Her analysis pursuits embody gender-based violence, girls’s well being in growing international locations, maternal and youngster well being, inequalities in well being care utilization, well being and human rights, and gender and growth.
Why did you select to enter Ladies’s well being analysis? What do you want most about your discipline?
RZ: By coaching, I’m a medical physician. Whereas I used to be doing my residency in Gynecology and Obstetrics, many a instances I met with girls who skilled violence and had sexual and reproductive well being points reminiscent of unplanned being pregnant on account of violence. Having the thrust for analysis on maternal and youngster well being because the third yr of my medical schooling, this shut interplay with girls triggered me to do analysis on this space.
For the final 20 years, I’ve been concerned in a variety of analysis actions specializing in girls’s well being, empowerment and enhancement of their social standing and financial participation. My 80 plus publications in impression issue worldwide journals primarily spotlight girls’s well being and youngster well being associated points. The central themes and first focus of my analysis is that ladies’s significant participation is the important thing driver of nation’s socio-economic growth trajectories.
As a Professor of Public Well being, I’ve been assembling proof to display that gender points are critically necessary for Pakistani society. Getting inspiration from Robert Ok. Merton’s notion that ‘knowledge has energy’, I’ve been presenting empirical proof to counsel that lack of funding in girls’s well being has critical adverse implications on nation’s economic system, polity and world fame. My analysis has additionally illuminated that if girls are victims of violence, ignorance and social exclusion, nation can not attain financial prosperity, peace, stability and social concord.
My analysis on social epidemiology, infectious illnesses (reminiscent of dengue and Covid-19), on youngster well being reminiscent of breastfeeding practices, youngster vitamin & Vitamin D deficiency have documented that social and well being scientist should come ahead to current out-of-the-box options to take care of social determinants of well being as a substitute of over-investing on hospital-based healing strategies.
You’ve got not too long ago turn into our new Part Editor for Ladies’s well being. Why did you resolve to affix our Editorial Board and what motivates you about your new function?
RZ: I like my function as part editor for girls’s well being, as girls’s well being particularly in LMICs may be very near my coronary heart. As a bit editor, I get to know new analysis on this space from completely different a part of the world because it comes out. It helps me to know and see the strengths and weaknesses of researches from all around the world. I’m assured that my contributions as part editor will depart a constructive mark on this space by means of reflecting high-quality work on this space. It helps me to get familiarity with ongoing analysis in girls’s well being, give me institutional credit score, and above all provides me better visibility inside my analysis group which motivated me to work as Editorial Board Member.
What do you suppose is essentially the most thrilling space in Ladies’s well being analysis for the time being?
RZ: Social determinants tremendously have an effect on girls’s well being notably in growing international locations. In some components of the world, girls are disadvantaged of their fundamental rights together with entry to well being providers, applicable vitamin and schooling. Socio-cultural practices reminiscent of youngster marriages, pressured marriages, cousin marriages, feminine genital mutilation, and son choice undermine girls well being and wellbeing. Moreover, varied adverse stereotypes reminiscent of being pregnant and childbirth associated taboos, dowry and honor associated violence, restrictions on girls’s mobility and social participation are considerably related to girls’s well being standing. For bettering girls’s sexual and reproductive well being, society must take complete and built-in measures to deal with the cultural stereotypes and dangerous sociocultural practices in opposition to girls.
What are, in your opinion, crucial challenges for the Ladies’s well being analysis group?
RZ: Nonetheless in lots of components of the world, notably in conservative areas, speaking about girls’s well being, particularly associated to social points, is taken into account a western agenda. A lot of the analysis on girls’s well being is specializing in mortality and morbidity round maternal well being and life course perspective continues to be missing on this space. There may be lack of adequately educated researchers on this discipline. In lots of international locations, nationally consultant knowledge just isn’t accessible on girls’s well being points which result in lack of evidence-based insurance policies, planning and applications. And the outcomes derived from native research are hardly ever accessible to wider viewers and are usually not broadly circulated.
How necessary is Open Science for the Ladies’s well being analysis group? What function can PLOS ONE play to contribute to Ladies’s well being analysis?
RZ: Open Science for girls’s well being analysis group is essential to disseminate and share information from all around the world particularly for the researchers from low- and middle-income international locations. PLOS One is taking part in its nice function by sharing and disseminating scholarship in girls’s well being with girls’s well being researchers’ group. In PLOS One, there’s nice illustration of analysis on completely different points associated to girls’s well being from completely different international locations throughout the globe.
Why would you advise authors to publish in PLOS ONE?
RZ: There are various legitimate causes to recommendation authors to publish in PLOS One. I’m sharing some factors beneath:
- PLOS One is very respected journal within the discipline of Public Well being with excessive impression issue. Journal’s quotation and readership is unfold all around the world.
- The method of manuscript evaluate and suggestions may be very rigorous. The reviewers present their detailed constructive suggestions in well timed method, which helps to enhance the analysis and writing expertise of authors.
- Being a widely known journal within the discipline, publishing with PLOS One helps the authors to extend their visibility with related influencers.
- PLOS One additionally supplies the chance to their authors to be part of peer-review course of for his or her manuscripts. To me, to be a reviewer is a win-win scenario which helps the authors to study new analysis from completely different views.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by contributors are solely these of particular person contributors, and never essentially these of PLOS
