OPINION Who is a global health expert? Chiamaka P. OjiakoID 1 *, Lazenya Weekes-Richemond 1 , Vuyiseka Dubula-Majola 2 , Marie- Claire Wangari ID 3 1 Women in Global Health-UK Chapter, London, United Kingdom, 2 Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, 3 Women in Global Health-Kenya Chapter, Nairobi, Kenya * preciousojiako@gmail.com Introduction In a previous blog post [1] we wrote that there is neither a universally accepted definition of global health expertise nor credentials to decide who a global health expert is. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, global health is an inherently interdisciplinary field and allows diverse roles and actors. On the other hand, the lack of consensus on what makes a global health expert has created global health experts by default, often based on nationality or ethnicity (i.e. elevation of whiteness as a marker of expertise) or country of residence, resulting in an uneven skew of global health “experts” from HIC, and often resulting in major decisions being made far away from where the real problems are and where the real expertise exists. Data clearly show that global health organizations are typically led by people with power and privilege in the Global North (with older, white men as the most dominant group), while only a tiny fraction of leadership roles or board seats are held by people from LMICs [2]. This skewed distribution perpetuates a history of colonialism and exploitation that elevates access to resources, whiteness, and branding as key factors for developing expertise rather than lived experience and competence. Furthermore, it has excluded health professionals in the Global South [3] and caused them to be hesitant about declaring their expertise even when they are experts, in the proper sense. Expertise is not limited to medical or health professionals Global health evolved from colonial medicine, tropical medicine, and international health with a primary focus on medical and health problems [4]. Despite the crucial role of medical and health professionals, global health is more than medical care and extends to addressing other underlying drivers of health, social and political determinants, and non-health sectoral issues. The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that merely brandishing evidence, facts, and science is not enough to ensure equity or improve outcomes. Culture, human behaviour, governance, law, politics, regulations, and institutional frameworks are equally key aspects of global health and require non-health professionals versed in health and their area of discipline. And yet, we continue to put too much weight on only some of these experiences (i.e., doc- tors, scientists, etc). We must recognize that global health expertise is not limited to the medi- cal, public health and other science-related professions. We must start valuing experts from other professions and experts who truly bring multi-disciplinarity to their practice. Expertise is not limited to academia or high-income nations Despite the significant work and contributions of people from LMICs to global health research and program implementation, often they do not see themselves as global health experts given that global health is a field that is driven by HICs [5]. PLOS GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH PLOS Global Public Health | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0002269 August 17, 2023 1/4 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Ojiako CP, Weekes-Richemond L, Dubula-Majola V, Wangari M-C (2023) Who is a global health expert? PLOS Glob Public Health 3(8): e0002269. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pgph.0002269 Editor: Julia Robinson, PLOS: Public Library of Science, UNITED STATES Published: August 17, 2023 Copyright: © 2023 Ojiako et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.