A Short History of ICHG

by Matthew Ellis

Modern interest in links between British paediatricians and colleagues overseas can be traced back to 1955 and the 26th Annual General Meeting of the British Paediatric Association (BPA) at Windermere (Arch Dis Child. 1955 Jun; 30(151): 297–301) where ‘The Executive Committee considered a letter from Dr. Cicely Williams advocating extension of the activities of the Association to paediatricians, many of whom were cut off from association with other paediatricians. The Committee concluded that such extension was desirable and the Office has been invited to send an observer to meetings, as the Ministries of Health and Education already do. The Committee offered the aid of the Association in helping visiting paediatricians to make the best use of their time in Great Britain and Ireland. It is hoped that many members will cooperate with the Hon. Secretary (to whom requests for advice will be sent) in forwarding the arrangement, and also in seeing that Commonwealth and visitors continue to be given the opportunity to attend the annual general meeting’.

The following year 1956 at the 27th AGM of the BPA (Arch Dis Child. 1956 Jun; 31(157): 240–243.) ‘a new standing sub-committee has been set up to consider tropical paediatrics. Three visitors from the Commonwealth have taken advantage of the offer of the Association to assist them to see what particularly interested them in paediatrics in the United Kingdom’.

By 1964 this had become the ‘Overseas Committee’ but it was another ten years before the Association had grown sufficiently to generate the formation of specialty groups. The first scientific group sessions recorded in the Archives of Diseases in Childhood(Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1975, 50, 821) appear in the 1975 Proceedings of  46th  BPA AGM when papers from the British Paediatric Tropical Child Health Group meeting (along with three other newly formed specialty groups Endocrinology, Gastroenterology and Social and Educational Paediatrics) were published.

The Papers that appeared at that first meeting give a flavour of the wide range of concerns, both biological (cerebral malaria, gut structure in malnutriton) and organisational (nutritional rehabilitation, mobile young child clinics and part-time health workers) that continue to challenge child health to this day.

By the 1980’s the Group’s focus had broadened from the tropics to a more global international perspective with the increasingly established view that the diseases of childhood related more to global inequalities than physical geography. The membership had also broadened as the Group recognised that child health was a multidisciplinary project and welcomed all who worked in child health into its ranks. This importantly broadened the Group’s scope from that of a specialty group limited to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (with which it remains proudly associated) and gave impetus to the founding of a regular winter meeting outside the bounds of the RCPCH annual conference. These annual focussed meetings on topics of shared importance held with colleagues of allied disciplines increasingly feature online partners and have become a defining activity of the Group.   

Through the efforts of a small, rotating and enthusiastic committee the group has nourished members, young and old who found themselves practicing in the UK either newly returned from overseas posts, maintaining a partnership with colleagues overseas or actively planning to work overseas. This was especially important during the late 1980’s and early 1990s when political support for our work was lacking and many LMIC countries health services struggled to meet even basic needs. During periods when global child health concerns have been under the radar it has often fallen to ICHG alumni to keep the flame alight whether in scientific conferences at home and abroad, in dusty ministry of health offices around the world, in corridors of influence in Geneva and of course at the front line village clinics and under resourced hospitals where most members were first inspired.

The fashioning of the Millenium Development Goals and of course latterly the Sustainable Development Goals heralded a new era for what we now know as global child health and partnerships are all the rage as child health fights for its share of the 0.7% Overseas Development Aid (ODA) tithe. Which will soon be 0.5%. The ICHG has done much to seed those all important partnerships between child health workers around the world. As ever we stand on the shoulders of others and none broader than Dr. Cicely Williams.

The International Child Health Group Committee and members recognise that the history of the group, as documented above, is one which includes challenges linked to British Colonial history. As reflected in our values, we recognise that there is no place for injustice or discrimination in Global Child Health and we value contributions of colleagues from all backgrounds as we work together to improve the health of children and young people across the world.