The power of representation: why how scientists visualise the world matters

in particular-often at the forefront of questioning unjust power structures embedded into scientific practice-can be instrumental in this development.Large peer-reviewed health journals, such as The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, or JAMA, currently do not include specific formatting requirements for world maps in their submission guidelines. [8][][10] We suggest that journals should explicitly discourage the use of the Mercator projection and recommend alternatives such as the Equal Earth projection.At a minimum, authors should be required to report the projection used, to increase awareness that no default choice exists.Additionally, journals could encourage clearer representation of small or easily obscured countries, such as small island nations-for example, by incorporating inset or zoomed-in panels or by adding colour-coded symbols. 6 No map projection is perfect.However, various alternatives that are much less skewed than the Mercator projection-both literally and figuratively-are readily available.Global health journals can lead the way in turning the representation of power into the power of representation.We declare no competing interests.