and the Global Medical Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Some of the issues within poorly directed STMEs include a lack of coordination with existing medical services and national and local public health offi cials; language and cultural understanding; medical skill sets (appropriate experience, training, and licensing) to perform procedures; familiarity with national and local laws; knowledge of unique challenges that may aff ect medication intake (e.g., the availability of food and water); and understanding of individual medical histories and continuity of care.More broadly, the sections below also illuminate the point that without necessary research and communication with the partner community, some interventions may not necessarily cause extensive harm to individuals, but rather, may be misaligned with the needs of the communities they seek to assist and so are either less eff ective or unwanted. These engagements represent a lost opportunity in terms of wasting resources that could have been applied to a quality STME or to meet other needs of the partner community and sometimes also waste preciously limited resources of the host community. These failed STMEs rarely become public knowledge. Moreover, the failure may not be recognized or acknowledged by the leaders and participants. Generally, there is little to no oversight, nor is there a requirement for a public record regarding STME activities. Without oversight, STMEs may not be self-correcting.At the same time, global health promotion and partnerships have been encouraged by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-specifi cally SDG-3, which seeks to "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages," and SDG-17, which seeks to "strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development" [25]. As in the example of ReSurge, some eff ective STMEs have successfully contributed to these goals, especially those that focus on SDG-17's advocacy for targeted "capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans" [25].This paper also seeks to defi ne both challenges and opportunities that exist for STMEs and suggests co-ordinated actions to establish best practices for highquality STMEs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.