For so many of us, it was difficult and challenging year with the high toll of the pandemic on human lives, health, wellbeing, economic losses and lost opportunities. Yet, we have also learned creative ways from each other to build and sustain compassion, endurance, resilience, and support. During the worldwide lockdowns many of our readers have had to master new work from home environments and remote communication strategies. Likewise, we have mastered zoom-meetings across continents with the editorial, management, typesetters, and production teams in UK, US, Germany, and India.
Late February of 2020, right before the WHO declared the pandemic, the Journal of Public Health Policy (JPHP) switched to a new manuscript management system supported by Springer Nature Publishing. This system offers better functionality, tracking, and sharing with our readers, reviewers, and the members of Editorial Board. We tackled this transition with the help of Jessica Torr, Meghan Hartwick, and Katherine Chabalko, while Phyllis Freeman was wrapping up the submissions received via the old system.
In 2020, we received 570 submissions from more than 72 countries. We received ten or more submissions from the contributors residing in United States of America (119), China (69), India (62), the United Kingdom (26), Turkey (20), Iran (19), Australia (14), Pakistan (14), Japan (13), Korea (South) (13), Spain (11), Italy (10) and Bangladesh (10). Authors from Algeria, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam who contributed three or more manuscripts (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1.
JPHP received three or more manuscripts from 40 countries in 2020
As the venue for public health professionals, we felt the impact of the pandemic on the content and focus of submissions to the Journal this year. In March of 2020 we set up the Topical Collection on Public Health Response to COVID-19 and as of 25 March 2021 we have published 15 original articles, Viewpoints, and Letters to the Editors highlighting the challenges, recommendations, and achievements of public health professionals. As expected, many our contributors and reviewers experienced the pressure of being on the frontline and we are immensely thankful for their committed time and dedication.
We thank the constructive guidance and timeliness provided by 145 reviewers who completed 195 reviews over the past year. Our reviewers’ pool represents five continents and includes 26 countries: Australia, Canada, Ecuador, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Lebanon, Nepal, The Netherland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, and USA. We would like to express our gratitude to:
| Naglaa El Abbadi |
| Muhammad A J Adnan |
| Andrea Acevedo |
| Mark A Gottlieb |
| Mehdi Ahmadi |
| Chiara Altare |
| Oyedolapo Anyanwu |
| Francisco Armada |
| Shelly Arora |
| Glory O. Atilola |
| Dhan Bahadur Shrestha |
| Naheed Banu |
| Fran Baum |
| Ryan Benner Simpson |
| Debanjan Bhattacharya |
| Leslie I. Boden |
| Lee Breckenridge |
| James Chauvin |
| Jamie Chriqui |
| Alessandro Colombo |
| Laura Corlin |
| Ron Crump |
| Tess Boley Cruz |
| Adolfo Cuevas |
| Ghassan Daher |
| Andrew Day |
| Richard A. Daynard |
| Loren De Freitas |
| Akira Ehara |
| Ahmed Elsharkawy |
| Elizabeth Erdman |
| Luis Eugenio Portela Fernandes de Souza |
| Ramón Feenstra |
| María Fernanda Vinueza-Veloz |
| Erin Fredericks |
| Phyllis Freeman |
| María Teresa García-Nieto |
| Aythamy Gonzalez-Darias |
| Julie Rowlet |
| Subrata Roy |
| Indrajit Gowdar |
| Michelle Grant |
| Barbara Haesler |
| Meghan Hartwick |
| Furqan Hashmi |
| James Hawdon |
| Marie Hayes |
| Patrick Hemming |
| Erin Hennessy |
| Eve J. Higginbotham |
| Ellen T. Hoen |
| Aida Hoteit |
| Jayne Hutchinson |
| Kenneth Kalu |
| Anita Kar |
| Laura G. Kehoe |
| Osnat Keidar |
| Elizabeth King |
| Janni Kinsler |
| Deborah Kochevar |
| Patrick Marius Koga |
| Lloyd J. Kolbe |
| Karen Kosinski |
| Alexandra Kulinkina |
| Dolly Kumari |
| Shyama Kuruvilla |
| Irina Kuznetsova |
| Ana Langer |
| Breanne Langlois |
| Breanne K. Langlois |
| Gideon Lasco |
| David Legge |
| Rago Lembit |
| Peter Levine |
| Xiuting Li |
| Lawrence Liberti |
| Gitanjali Singh |
| Michael Sinha |
| Yei-Whei Lin |
| Martha Livingston |
| Eric Lofgren |
| Marian MacDorman |
| Nithin Manchery |
| Gerald Markowitz |
| Anastasia Marshak |
| Elize Massard da Fonseca |
| Stephen A. McCurdy |
| Elly Mertens |
| Joel Mintz |
| Alicia Monroe |
| Robert D. Morris |
| Carles Muntaner |
| Emil Nasritdinov |
| Poonam Nayar |
| Keith Neal |
| Jesus Andree Neyra Leon |
| Mohamed O. Nour |
| Rosalie Pacula |
| Sukri Palutturi |
| Apurva Kumar Pandya |
| Lidia Panico |
| Ganeshkumar Parasuraman |
| Kee Park |
| Parveen Parmar |
| Wendy Parmet |
| Enrico Pavignani |
| Farrukh Qureshi |
| Rayan Jo Rachwan |
| Chris Rees |
| Aaron Reeves |
| Thomas Ricketts |
| Judit Rius Sanjuan |
| Robin Robinson |
| Beth Rosenberg |
| Oliver Rubin |
| Indranil Saha |
| Rajiv Sarkar |
| Stephen Schoenbaum |
| Jodi Segal |
| Fernando Sempértegui |
| Rajib Shaw |
| Changwoo Shon |
| Nothemba Simelala |
| Steven Stack |
| Thomas J Stopka |
| Alison Talbert |
| Bikash Bikram Thapa |
| Alex van den Heever |
| Susan Van Katwyk |
| Maria F. Vinueza-Veloz |
| Marianne Vyas |
| Deborah K. Walker |
| Mary White |
| Cassandra White |
| Roy Widdus |
| Norbert L. W. Wilson |
| John Wooding |
| Yiqing Xu |
| Danyuo Yiporo |
| Helen Young |
| Ngoyi Zacharie Bukonda |
| Jonathan Zenilman |
| Bingjie Zhou |
My first year as Editor-in-Chief has taught me valuable lessons—to treasure the resilience and wisdom of my colleagues, to nurture talents and to remain optimistic. I was moved and impressed by the reviewers’ thoughtfulness and authors’ responsiveness to comments and suggestions, by the enthusiasm of investigators and practitioners starting their career, and perseverance of scientists for whom this pandemic was just the next on the list. The submissions of this year touched a broad range of topics that will be relevant for generations to come. Among many are: climate change and health equity, vaccination hesitancy, health of refugees and migrant workers, misinformation and health communication, microbial resistance, domestic violence and opioid surge. In times of crises, the deficiencies of systems that disfavor or threaten people exploited for a long list of reasons, including social status, religious beliefs, native tongue, skin color, or sexual orientation reveals persistent structural inequalities. These inequalities have deep historical roots. Each act of injustice, violence, economic deprivation, or environmental degradation toward one sown the seeds of future inequality for many. I will keep the Journal attuned to the voices of those who seek solutions, offer suggestions, try and fail and try and succeed. It is my continued hope that despite the challenges of a given day "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" (as attributed to Aristotle).
Elena N. Naumova, Editor-in-Chief
Footnotes
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