Establishment of the International Maritime Health Foundation: the next step in scientific publishing in maritime health

Abstract

The Bulletin of the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine (IMTM) was published first time in 1948 as a preliminary publication. Since then it has developed and from 1999 it is known as International Maritime Health (IMH). Initially it was published by the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine (IMTM) in Gdynia. From 2009 it was published by the Polish Society of Maritime, Tropical and Travel Medicine (PSMTTM) in cooperation with the International Maritime Health Association (IMHA) and the Norwegian Centre for Maritime Medicine (NCMM), later the Norwegian Centre for Maritime and Diving Medicine (NCMDM) at the Department of Occupational Medicine, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen. After a couple of years of planning and discussions on how to take the journal forward, the International Maritime Health Foundation (IMHF) was established under Polish Law, 21st June 2018. This article discusses the process from the very beginning of the journal, until the establishment of the IMHF as well as the foundation’s objectives and way forward.