To begin, I congratulate Jay Maddock,
Ph.D., on the establishment of a new journal and a new publishing company.
Though editing a journal is a big job, it is familiar territory for
researchers. Starting a publishing company is a business enterprise almost all academics
avoid. This will be a fascinating experiment to follow, because JHEAL (Journal
of Healthy Eating and Active Living) signals a next step in the evolution
of the turbulent field of academic publishing. The turbulence I refer to
includes the rapid decline of hard copy journals, dramatically reduced
publication lags, rise of authors paying publication fees, proliferation of
low-quality “predatory” journals, decreasing reliance on libraries for journal
access, large profits of some academic publishing companies, increasing ability
to provide supplemental materials, and seemingly universal difficulty of
recruiting qualified reviewers. Some of these trends are positive, some are
negative, and others are just confusing. I don’t pretend to know where academic
publishing is heading or what an optimal model would be, but I’m confident that
evolution will continue. Is this researcher-owned publishing company the start
of a new trend?
Though JHEAL
is part of the larger evolution of academic publishing, it is built on its own
origin story. As described to me by Dr. Maddock, JHEAL came out of the
paradigm shift promoted by Active Living Research (ALR; 2001–2016; Sallis et
al., 2014) and Healthy Eating Research (HER; 2004–present; Lott et al., 2019;
Story et al., 2006), both grant-funding programs supported by the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation. JHEAL not only pays tribute to these programs by
adopting their names, JHEAL is designed to build on their legacies. ALR
and HER shared primary goals. The first goal was to build evidence about policy
and environmental drivers and interventions for their respective behavioral
outcomes. This approach was intended to complement, and even remediate the
limitations of, the dominant research focus on psychosocial influences on
behavior and interventions targeting individuals and small groups. Broadening
the focus of research and practice was expected to lead to multilevel
interventions with enhanced reach and permanence of outcomes. A second goal of
both programs was to support interdisciplinary research teams, because the
greater complexity of the studies required a wider range of concepts, methods,
and skills. Part of this goal was to support investigators with diverse
personal backgrounds, to enhance the relevance of studies to vulnerable
populations. A third common goal was to fund studies with the potential to
influence policy and practice, then facilitate investigators to take actions to
achieve that goal. Both programs appeared to have a rapid influence on
behavioral research, based on an analysis of trends in policy and environment
content of Society of Behavioral Medicine abstracts (Sallis et al., 2013). An independent
evaluation of ALR documented progress on all the goals (Barker & Gutman,
2014).
The goals and
methods of JHEAL are consistent with those of ALR and HER. Submissions
are preferred that deal with environmental, policy-relevant, and multilevel
studies and interventions. Interdisciplinary studies are welcomed and
prioritized. This is a significant distinction, because during a panel
discussion of journal editors from various disciplines at an ALR conference,
all editors stated their decisions were driven by serving their core
disciplinary readers. None mentioned an emphasis on interdisciplinary papers. JHEAL
is committed to contributing to the translation of research to practice and
policy. The Journal is taking a risk by having sections for research and for practice
or policy papers, but this practice will help expose these distinct audiences
to material they would otherwise be unlikely to encounter.
These goals and
methods are not unique to JHEAL, but they are unusual enough that I
expect the focus of JHEAL will be a strength in attracting high-quality
papers with appeal across multiple disciplines and solid potential for
application. Policy, environmental, and multilevel research; interdisciplinary
collaborations; international research; and translating research to practice
and policy all remain challenges for researchers, and I believe JHEAL’s
focus will contribute to growing, strengthening, and sustaining this highly
diverse community of researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and advocates.
JHEAL is adopting
practices likely to enhance its value and impact. For a fee-based journal,
there are several features that improve its accessibility compared to other
journals. The fees are lower than any journal I am aware of that requires fees,
and there are several discount programs, including for submissions from
low-income countries. Digital media files are encouraged, because maps,
animations, infographics, audio files, and other materials should improve
communication of findings and recommendations to diverse audiences.
Commentaries, editorials, and audio summaries will deepen discussions and
expand audiences. This first issue contains a special section, and I encourage
similar themed sections or issues to become regular features because they
become valuable collections of information on the current status of a research,
practice, policy, or translation issue.
A bottom line
question is, “Is a new journal really needed?” The answer is probably “no”
because active living research and healthy eating research are already
flourishing. But if the question is “Can JHEAL make important
contributions?” my answer is “yes.” The focus on applied research, the
diversity of paper types, the inclusion of practice and policy papers, the
interdisciplinary orientation, and the joint emphasis on active living and
healthy eating—which are major drivers of numerous leading causes of death—are
all agendas that can and should be nurtured. Inactive lifestyles, unhealthy
diets, and the related chronic diseases remain among the biggest challenges in
global public health. The launch of JHEAL during a historic pandemic is
responsive to current needs, because the COVID-19 pandemic has brought new
awareness of the important contributions of these challenges to infectious disease
outcomes. Horton (2020) explains how COVID-19, chronic diseases, and
sociodemographic inequalities constitute a syndemic because they are all interrelated.
The current situation brings new urgency to advance and expand active living
and healthy eating research while improving its translation to even broader
domains of practice and policy.
Because an
experienced investigator is leading both the Journal and the publishing
company, I expect JHEAL itself will evolve, be open to thoughtful input,
and be willing to innovate. I begin that process here by encouraging the
editors to solicit, and investigators to submit, papers on the roles of active
living and healthy eating in the syndemic involving COVID-19, chronic diseases,
and sociodemographic inequality. In addition, it is increasingly vital for our
healthy eating and active living research to make explicit connections with the
threat of climate change. There is tremendous opportunity for improvements in
movement and eating patterns to contribute to reducing greenhouse gases while
enhancing health. As we understand better how our topics of active living and
healthy eating are promising remedies not only for chronic diseases, but also
social injustices, infectious diseases, and even the health of the planet, the
need for actionable evidence becomes ever more pressing. With this new journal,
let’s be bold in what we try to accomplish.
Corresponding
author:
James F. Sallis,
Ph.D.
Distinguished
Professor Emeritus
Herbert Wertheim
School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science
University of
California, San Diego, MC 0631
9500
Gilman Drive. La Jolla, CA 92093-0631 USA
Email: jsallis@ucsd.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2555-9452
Creative Commons License:
This work is licensed
under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Suggested citation
(APA 7th edition): Sallis, J. F. (2020). JHEAL: What does it mean to
initiate a new journal? Journal of Healthy Eating and Active Living, 1(1),
1–2.
References
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