{"doi":"10.1093/jalm/jfaf145","title":"How to Get Involved in Global Laboratory Medicine: A Perspective","abstract":"The practice of laboratory medicine has seen significant advancements over the past several decades. These include an increasingly expansive test menu, technological innovations in automation that enhance operational efficiency, and improved analytical techniques that contribute to greater assay accuracy and precision. These advancements and the knowledge accumulated over the years were put to the test most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many laboratories around the world demonstrated remarkable adaptability and resilience, not all were adequately equipped or could rapidly mobilize resources to do so. In this context, the pandemic exposed and magnified longstanding disparities in access to high-quality laboratory medicine services, particularly in resource-limited settings. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 84% of the global population resides in low- and middle-income countries, where healthcare systems frequently encounter resource challenges (1). In this article, the authors highlight key challenges commonly encountered by laboratories in such environments, drawing insights from their personal and professional experiences in global laboratory medicine, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also discuss practical ways in which readers can support the advancement of laboratory medicine in resource-limited settings. Advancements in laboratory medicine have primarily been driven by high-income countries. In addition to this foundational disparity, laboratories in high-income settings benefit from significant advantages over those in resource-limited regions. These include access to cutting-edge technologies, continued professional development, stable funding, laboratory leadership with advanced training, accreditation systems, reliable supply chains, and robust quality assurance programs, all of which contribute to the advancement of patient care. In addition, well-organized professional organizations, often lacking in many resource-constrained countries, contribute tremendously to the advancement of laboratory medicine through advocacy and policy influence. Equally important, effective regulatory frameworks with robust oversight and enforcement mechanisms have been crucial for advancing laboratory medicine in high-income countries. In contrast, quality improvement efforts in low-resource countries often depend on the initiatives of specific institutes and laboratories. Moreover, while laboratories worldwide face shortages of skilled professionals, this issue is particularly acute in resource-limited countries, which already suffers a strained healthcare workforce (1). In Africa, for example, the ratio of healthcare workers is about 1.22 per 1000 people, well below WHO's benchmark of 4.45 per 1000 required to provide basic health coverage (2). This partly stems from a brain drain of skilled healthcare workers, driven by limited career opportunities and poor job satisfaction and returns, and results in shortages of local expertise in crucial areas such as infectious diseases, inborn errors of metabolism (leading to a lack of newborn screening in many places), and genetic disease diagnostics. Sustained gaps in laboratory infrastructure further compound these workforce challenges (3). For instance, unreliable access to electricity and cold chains critically undermines diagnostic capacity by accelerating reagent deterioration and leading to persistent stockouts, since bulk storage is unfeasible (4). Further, well-recognized inherent challenges associated with achieving and maintaining laboratory quality are exacerbated in resource-limited settings. For instance, in these settings, the lack of assay harmonization is acutely felt, with financial constraints and weak regulatory oversight driving procurement decisions. This often compels laboratories to prioritize affordability over quality and consistency, severely impeding local assay harmonization efforts. Beyond these daily challenges,","journal":"The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine","year":2025,"id":548014,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9611,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":526728,"name":"Roa Harb","orcid":"0000-0001-8709-4318","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":964170,"name":"Merih Tesfazghi","orcid":"0000-0001-5081-9645","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":379346,"name":"Catherine L Omosule","orcid":"0000-0003-0750-2129","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":8,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:53:53.962932Z","pmid":"41144249","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}