How the growth of open access research in Mexico is influencing global policy

Tortillas are a staple food in Mexican culture. They're of significant economic and cultural importance.

This study by researchers at UNAM examines handmade tortilla workshops (HMTWs) in central-western Mexico. It looks at their impact on local economies, their role in preserving native maize varieties, and the health and environmental concerns of open fires in HMTWs.

The study is cited in this report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on how Indigenous peoples can generate income while protecting and promoting their culture and values.

In 2003, the Mexican government created the System for Social Protection in Health (SSPH). By 2018, its main component, Seguro Popular (SP), helped provide health insurance to an estimated 53 million Mexicans.

This commentary on SSPH by Dr. Octavio Gómez-Dantés and former Secretary of Health of Mexico Dr. Julio Frenk highlights how universal health coverage (UHC) strategies should reinforce:

• Personal health services (such as diagnostic and treatment services)
• Health-related common goods (such as regulation, taxes, sanitation, subsidies, and waste management)

The commentary is cited in a WHO technical note on measuring primary health care (PHC) expenditure. PHC is an effective strategy for improving the health of populations and enabling universal health care.

Climate change is having a dramatic impact on food security.

This 2022 U.N. FAO paper guides policymakers, researchers, and practitioners on using biodiversity and genetic diversity to create more resilient and sustainable food systems.

The paper cites this PeerJ Life & Environment article that examines how four major forest tree species respond to climatic changes, such as shifts in temperature and precipitation. The paper helps improve our understanding of how genetic differences influence climate sensitivity in tree species.

Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero from the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo is a co-author of the paper.

Wheat is a staple food for more than a third of the world population. It provides 20% of calories consumed globally. Wheat exports were worth $39 million to the Mexican economy in 2023.

Wheat research involves huge datasets from many sources. This means it's essential that data formats and vocabulary are standardized to allow easy sharing and reuse.

This article from the F1000 Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition gateway discusses the efforts of the Wheat Data Interoperability Working Group (WDI-WG) to formalize how different systems and devices should use and exchange wheat data.

The article's co-authors include Richard Fulss, Director of the Knowledge Management and Information Technology department at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center based in Mexico.

The article is also relevant to other crop research communities and open research in general. This EU paper on delivering a standardized Europe-wide data framework to promote open science cites the findings from the article.

Mass strandings and accumulations of a type of seaweed called sargassum on beaches are causing massive environmental and economic damage to Caribbean coastal communities. It impacts public health, fisheries, and tourism, and is difficult to forecast and track.

In this paper, researchers designed a deep neural network that uses satellite imagery to detect floating and accumulated sargassum with 90% accuracy along the coastline of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

It involved researchers from Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), and UNAM.

Their work could be applied to other coastlines and help with early warnings and better management of sargassum. It's featured in a U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) white paper on managing the sargassum crisis.

In 2005, WHO set up the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). It aimed to help countries address the social factors that lead to poor health and health inequities.

This paper in the Global Health Action journal by Dr. Adolfo Martinez Valle presents two case studies. Each examines how Mexico has tracked and measured public policies that address the social factors related to health outcomes.

The study is highlighted in policy documents including WHO reports on monitoring health for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the relationship between health care employment and economic growth.

The cactus moth (Cactoblastis cactorum) is highly effective at controlling invasive prickly pear (Opuntia) plants. But the moth poses a serious threat in Mexico, where native prickly pear species are ecologically and economically important.

This OA chapter in the book Area-wide Integrated Pest Management examines a 2022 surveillance program to detect and prevent the introduction and establishment of the cactus moth after it arrived in Florida in the late 1980s. It looks at how regulatory actions, outreach activities, and surveillance successfully managed two large infestations in Mexico.

The chapter is highlighted as a resource in these FAO/IAEA guidelines for shipping insects safely.

This article in the Journal of Development Studies by Dr. Robert Duval-Hernández examines informal employment in urban Mexico.

It uses data from the 2015 Mexican Labour Force Survey, which asked urban workers about how they value jobs with social security coverage. It highlights two main factors that limit formal employment for employees:

1. Household demographics and division of housework
2. Level of education

The article is referenced in an NBER report that investigates how credit card contract terms and employment shocks such as job losses affect credit card default rates in Mexico.