Abstract
This is an exciting time to become editors of Journal of Health and Social Behavior (JHSB). Medical sociology enjoys an important intellectual space: one that connects core questions and concepts of sociology with ideas and issues central to public and population health, medicine, and related health fields. Yet, for all its incredible successes pushing outward to influence thinking and understanding about health, illness, and disease—that is, bridging to other disciplines—medical sociology’s important contributions to issues at the center of sociology—that is, its bonding to the larger discipline—are sometimes less evident to sociologists outside the subfield. A focus on these bridging and bonding issues constitutes the framework that guides our editorial approach.
Our goal for JHSB is to publish high-quality medical sociology scholarship that advances health research, practice, and policy, but also remains connected to and informs ideas from other areas of sociology. To help us pursue this goal, we recruited seven outstanding deputy editors, all leading scholars whose research pushes both outward from and inward toward the heart of sociology: Jason Beckfield (Harvard University), Sarah Burgard (University of Michigan), Robert Faris (University of California, Davis), Hedwig Lee (University of Washington), Bruce Link (University of California, Riverside), Sara Shostak (Brandeis University), and Margaret Weden (RAND). They will advise us on manuscript decisions, assist with adjudicating “mixed” reviews, and handle editorial decisions when we have conflicts of interest.
Initiatives Under Way
So, how do our goals matter for you, the JHSB readers, authors, and reviewers? We highlight below a few key elements that we intend to focus upon to maintain JHSB’s stature and upward trajectory in terms of submissions and impact, as well as ensure that each issue features rigorous, innovative, and thought-provoking scholarship.
Conceptual Papers and Commentaries
We want to include theoretical and conceptual papers that promote further debate within and beyond medical sociology. To encourage such submissions, we have recently created the Commentary—live in November 2016—as a new manuscript format. These shorter (3,000-word), peer-reviewed papers address specific theoretical and/or methodological issues of significant importance for advancing medical sociology research—a surgical approach to stimulating discussion and debate. Although we anticipate publishing few Commentaries relative to traditional research papers, we hope that such focused insights will help medical sociology engage in the bridging and bonding processes identified above.
Encourage a Broad Range of Submissions
Each JHSB volume features articles covering a range of topics; yet, its contents do not represent the full diversity of high-quality medical sociology research being conducted domestically and internationally. To enhance this, we hope to expand the breadth of high-quality papers submitted—in terms of substantive issues, methods, and geographic contexts. Furthermore, we aim to balance a showcase of the breadth of medical sociology along with work on critically emergent health issues. As such, we evaluate each submission to ensure that all papers—regardless of substantive, theoretical, and methodological focus—sufficiently highlight their engagement with and contribution to medical sociology and beyond, so that papers draw in a variety of readers and communicate relevance beyond scholars working in that specific area.
Enhanced Review Process
We strive to maintain JHSB’s excellent reputation for rapid time to decision. As practiced by past editors, each new submission is evaluated quickly regarding whether its quality warrants being peer-reviewed versus receiving a timely desk rejection. Also, we aim to minimize the number of revise-and-resubmit (R&R) decisions that a manuscript goes through (a key source of both reviewer burden and author frustration). For any R&R manuscript, we will seek to obtain evaluations from the original reviewers. However, it is not always possible—for reasons beyond editorial control—to recruit the original reviewers to reevaluate a manuscript. Thus, we intend to pursue greater transparency in corresponding with authors when new reviewers are necessary.
Greater Recognition of Peer Reviewers
Peer reviewing is critical to maintaining a high-quality journal. Yet, it is often a thankless job and, from our editorial experience, is sometimes inequitably undertaken (some scholars readily agree to review whenever asked, while others never do despite regular publication within the field). We recognize that, aside from a sense of professional duty, scholars often have few incentives to accept review invitations, as many departments sadly do not reward this vital service that we all depend upon personally and collectively. Therefore, we believe it is imperative to better recognize the importance of reviewing and to incentivize efficient and high-quality reviews. As such, we will institute awards for reviewers at all career stages who have demonstrated exceptional service to JHSB via the quality, efficiency, and helpfulness of their reviews. They will receive a commendation letter and be recognized in the journal.
Increase JHSB’s Social Media Presence
JHSB has a Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/JofHSB/, and Twitter profile, https://twitter.com/jofhsb (please follow us). These platforms offer wonderful opportunities for engaging with academic and nonacademic audiences, including journalists, practitioners, policy think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, and the general public. To that end, since assuming the editorship, we have increased our social media “followers” and the dissemination of article links and journal information relevant to JHSB’s readers and other interested parties. We hope to further increase this social media engagement during our term.
Expand JHSB’s Policy Impact
Sociology produces scholarship with the potential to directly impact communities and society more broadly. We aim to expand the policy impact of scholarship published within JHSB. The Policy Briefs provide a means to highlight policy-relevant work. We intend to take this one step further by improving the channeling of the findings of JHSB articles with significant policy implications directly to lawmakers and officials. This will provide the opportunity to help sociologists make an impact on health-related policy areas. Also, in an era when government agency funding has come under political attack, this will provide the means to directly remind lawmakers of the value of sociology for informing public policy.
Expand Editorial Board Opportunities
In continuing our efforts to include diverse substantive and methodological expertise on the editorial board, we will also seek to reduce network biases in appointments through issuing a call for applications for editorial board membership. This call will still involve an assessment of candidates by the editorial team to ensure balance, but we hope it will permit us to reach a wider array of scholars to consider for appointments and thus increase opportunities for such scholarly participation.
A Final Note of Thanks
We are thankful to all those who have assisted us since we began our editorial transition last July. Purdue University and the University of British Columbia support our editorial operation. Our predecessor, Gilbert Gee, and his UCLA team generously helped us and our outstanding managing editors, Ty Miller and Andrea Polonijo, get familiarized with many aspects of journal management and train our excellent editorial assistants: Ryan Stillwagon, Stephanie Wilson, and Laura Sierra. They also left us with a very healthy backlog of accepted papers to carry us well into 2017, giving us time for evaluating newer papers. We received valuable advice from former JHSB editors Michael Hughes, Eliza Pavalko, and Debra Umberson and current and past editors of other journals, notably, Sarah Mustillo, Rory McVeigh, Richard Serpe, Jan Stets, Linda Renzulli, Ken Ferraro, Elaine Wethington, and William Avison. Karen Gray Edwards and the American Sociological Association staff provided us with tremendous support. Also, many others, too numerous to thank individually, helped us in large and small ways, and we appreciate your assistance.
In closing, enjoy this current issue, stay tuned for announcements on social media, and keep those papers coming!