Redesign and Renewal

Abstract

I feel honored to have been selected to serve as the next Editor-in-Chief of Health Education & Behavior (HE&B). I follow in the footsteps of a storied group of previous chief editors—including Lowell Levin, Lawrence Green, Noreen Clark, and Marc Zimmerman—whose commitment, dedication, and editorial acumen have served HE&B well over its 37 volumes of publication. I want to thank Marc Zimmerman for his 12 years of outstanding leadership as the journal’s most recent chief editor. Marc strengthened HE&B’s impact factor and catapulted it into the top quarter of the ranking of journals in public, environmental, and occupational health. I also want to thank associate editors Jesus Ramirez-Valles, who will be moving as a newly elected Trustee of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) to service on the Publications Committee, and Lisa Lieberman, who will continue as a member of the Editorial Board of HE&B. Finally, but not least, I wish to acknowledge and thank Teresa Vogel for her long-time and superb service as HE&B’s editorial assistant, as well as SAGE Publications and the editorial production and marketing team in Los Angeles, whose continuing talented support of the journal’s growth and development has enabled HE&B to become the preeminent journal of behavioral and social science in public health that it is today. Changes in editorial leadership at any academic journal, however, invariably present the opportunity to rethink purpose and direction. Toward that end, I have undertaken a process with our Editorial Board to review with key stakeholder groups, including members of SOPHE and the authors and reviewers with whom the journal has worked, how we can strengthen the journal’s relevance and impact in light of SOPHE’s current mission and strategic plan and in recognition of the daunting public health challenges we face, not only in United States and North America but globally as well. I have worked with SAGE Publications during the past 6 months to make several important changes to the journal that will be evident in this issue. First, we have revisited the style and format of HE&B. This issue reveals a face-lift that freshens the design and layout, which, we hope, improves readability while preserving the classically elegant design that has characterized HE&B since the late 1990s when the journal went from publishing quarterly to six issues a year. The new cover has been designed by Janet Kiesel, senior graphic designer, in the SAGE Art Department. Subtle changes retain the branding of HE&B while creating a modern look. The title is now displayed in the font Perpetua and the two-color abstract design creates greater depth of field and motion. Although the SOPHE logo has always appeared within the four-square graphic, the addition of a new HE&B acronym in the opposite corner creates a balanced and complete logo for the journal. Behind the attractive new cover you will find what Denise Royle, production editor supervisor of the HE&B production team at SAGE, has implemented to achieve a subtle, but fresh, new look for the contents of HE&B. This includes a redesign of the layout for each article’s masthead and abstract, the introduction of a two-column format in which the Times New Roman text is set, and an increase in trim size to 81⁄2 by 11, all in an effort to both streamline and make more contemporary HE&B’s appearance. We have also improved the author notes element and each article now includes a statement of conflict of interests and author disclosure that appears at the end. Second, we have made some changes to the scope of content and in our capacity to communicate with our readership. With the development and success of HE&B’s sister journal, Health Promotion Practice (HPP), we have decided to discontinue Practice Notes, a section of HE&B that provided an important outlet for brief reports of innovative practice at a time when such reports were not available to the field. In an effort to reach out and draw in an entire new generation of young scholars who now routinely use social networking sites and blogs to communicate and collaborate, HE&B is now on Facebook and Twitter. And in the coming months, we will be considering additional new features that can improve the impact of the journal. I believe the changes we have made, as well as those that we are contemplating, will improve readability and relevance and will provide more opportunity for dialogue from the field about the science and scholarship that we choose to publish. Finally, thanks to the expert guidance and support provided by Katja Werlich Fried, publishing editor, and Charles Rink, editorial assistant for journals at SAGE, we have been able to move seamlessly to the SAGE Track editorial peer-review system, HE&B’s new online submission portal at Manuscript Central, which is powered by ScholarOne. In addition, in an