Abstract
Each year, the editorial team of the American Journal of Health Promotion selects our “Best of the Year List” of health promotion studies from the prior year. This editorial features the Editor’s picks, the Editor in Chief’s favorites and other award categories for the research and writing published in 2020 in this journal. Our criteria for selection includes: whether the study addresses a topic of timely importance in health promotion, the research question is clearly stated and the methodologies used are well executed; whether the paper is often cited and downloaded; if the study findings offer a unique contribution to the literature; and if the paper is well-written and enjoyable to read. Awardees in 2020 offered new insights into confronting systemic racism, the impact of state health policies on eating behaviors, the role of leaders in influencing employee health practices and the role of physicians in influencing patient health practices. You will see how researchers are studying psychological and emotional resiliency in ever more specific populations.
To honor some of health promotion’s best scientists and, in particular, to recognize those who bring outstanding humanity to their field of inquiry and bigheartedness to their writing, I am pleased to announce the American Journal of Health Promotion (AJHP) Papers of the Year from 2020. Selecting the best studies and papers from the past year from AJHP is both humbling and edifying. Humbling because the quality of our submissions seems to get better every year. This observation is corroborated by our journal’s rising “impact factor” as a journal, an indicator of how often our authors are cited by other researchers, making AJHP one of the most influential journals in our field. Only 2 in 10 papers submitted to this journal makes it to press so reviewing the best science on these pages is edifying because it gives us an opportunity to consider what research questions leading scholars in our field are pursuing and which of those questions measure up via a rigorous peer review process.
Reflecting on the manuscripts from our 2020 winners below, a few critical issues and trends surface. The second largest special issue in the history of this journal was our “Parity in Health Promotion” issue in 2018. (It was second to a special issue on obesity and diabetes management.) Whether we are making progress in parity in health promotion continued to be put to the test in 2020. Our award winning scholars challenged our profession to reimagine our role in addressing systemic racism and they researched the impact of policies and interventions on ever more specific sub groups. Studying the effectiveness of a variety of behavior change initiatives has been a mainstay of this journal and, similar to trends we saw in award winning papers from 2019, the reach of interventions and factors that could improve reach continues to drive hypothesis testing.
We invite you to re-read the papers featured below because they impressed our editors as studies that are advancing our field via inspiring research questions and exemplary research methods. We also found these papers had vibrant discussion sections that had us considering best practices alongside potential next practices. Albert Einstein said: “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” 1 Our wholehearted gratitude goes out to these authors for bringing this journal bold ideas and taking risks by testing unique and provocative research questions.
Papers of the Year Award Criteria
The award criteria our journal editors considered were applied to both the study and the paper such that the: Study addresses a topic of timely importance in health promotion. Research question is clearly stated and the methodologies used are well executed. Paper is often cited and/or downloaded. Study findings offer a unique contribution to the literature. Paper is well-written and enjoyable to read.
The “Best of 2020 List” of Health Promotion Researchers (Volume 34)
Editor in Chief Paper of the Year for 2020
Equity, Justice, and the Role of the Health Promotion Profession in Dismantling Systemic Racism. Sara S. Johnson, Ph.D. 2
Editor in Chief Review Article of the Year for 2020
Interventions to Improve Mental Health, Well-Being, Physical Health, and Lifestyle Behaviors in Physicians and Nurses: A Systematic Review.
Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, RN, Stephanie A. Kelly, PhD, RN, Janna Stephens, PhD, RN, Kerry Dhakal, MAA, MLS, Colleen McGovern, PhD, RN, Sharon Tucker, PhD, RN, Jacqueline Hoying, PhD, RN, Kenya McRae, PhD, Samantha Ault, MS, RN, Elizabeth Spurlock, BSN, RN, Steven B. Bird, MD. 3
Michael P O’Donnell Paper of the Year for 2020
They Came, But Will They Come Back? An Observational Study of Re-Enrollment Predictors for the Oklahoma Tobacco Helpline.
Laura A. Beebe, PhD, Lindsay M. Boeckman, MS, Paola G. Klein, MHR, Jessie E. Saul, PhD, Stephen R. Gillaspy, PhD. 4
Dorothy Nyswander Paper of the Year for 2020
Development and Evaluation of a Cancer Literacy Intervention to Promote Mammography Screening Among Navajo Women: A Pilot Study
Pamela S. Sinicrope, MPH, DrPH, Mark C. Bauer, PhD, Christi A. Patten, PhD, Martha Austin-Garrison, MED, Linda Garcia, AS, BA, Christine A. Hughes, BS, Martha J. Bock, BS, Paul A. Decker, MS, Kathleen J. Yost, PhD, Wesley O. Petersen, PhD, Lydia P. Buki, PhD, Edward R. Garrison, PhD, MPH. 5
Editors’ Picks Papers of the Year for 2020 (Volume 34)
Socioeconomic Differences in Access to Neighborhood and Network Social Capital and Associations with Body Mass Index among Black Americans
Stephanie T. Child, PhD, MPH, Andrew T. Kaczynski, PhD, Katrina M. Walsemann, PhD, MPH, Nancy Fleischer, PhD, MPH, Alexander McLain, PhD, Spencer Moore, PhD, MPH. 6
Workplace Well-Being Factors That Predict Employee Participation, Health and Medical Cost Impact, and Perceived Support
Jessica Grossmeier, PhD, MPH, Patricia H. Castle, PhD, Jennifer S. Pitts, PhD, Colleen Saringer, PhD, Kristi Rahrig Jenkins, PhD, Mary T. Imboden, PhD, David J. Mangen, PhD, Sara S. Johnson, PhD, Steven P. Noeldner, PhD, MS, Shawn T. Mason, PhD, LP. 7
Impact of Physician Referral to Health Coaching on Patient Engagement and Health Risks: An Observational Study of UPMC’s Prescription for Wellness
Michael D. Parkinson, MD, Tracy Hammonds, PhD, Donna J. Keyser, PhD, MBA, Jennie R. Wheeler, MBA, Pamela B. Peele, PhD. 8
Is Exercise a Useful Intervention in the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder? Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Fatih Gür, PhD, Ganime Can Gür, PhD. 9
Stronger State School Nutrition Laws Are Associated With Healthier Eating Behaviors and Optimal Weight Status in US Adolescents
Namrata Sanjeevi, PhD, Leah M. Lipsky, PhD, Tonja R. Nansel, PhD, Denise Haynie, PhD, Aiyi Liu, PhD, Bruce Simons-Morton, Ed.D. 10
The Association between Childhood Adversity and Self-Rated Physical Health in US College Students
Lisa M. Krinner, MSc, Jan Warren-Findlow, PhD, Jessamyn Bowling, PhD, MPH. 11
Current Issues and Growing Trends in Health Promotion
Like countless other writers in 2020, I have described how the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the legacy of health inequities experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). 12 Indeed, do an internet search on “COVID-19 laid bare” and you’ll see results confirming that “laid bare” is how a deluge of writers have described a syndemic where a pernicious virus has exacerbated a crisis of racial discrimination. One of our Associate Editor’s in Chief here at AJHP, Dr. Sara Johnson, won this year’s “Editor in Chief Paper of the Year” award in recognition of her usual meticulously referenced writing about any subject she tackles alongside her vivid confrontation of the 2020 syndemic. When something dreadful is laying bare, our impulse is to look away but Johnson’s article is a clarion call to face our complicity with a steady gaze. In “Equity, Justice, and the Role of the Health Promotion Profession in Dismantling Systemic Racism” Johnson writes: “The need to get one’s house in order hits close to home. Health and wellness are far too white. Given that psychological safety is so fundamental to well-being, we have to ask if it is possible to truly promote well-being in the absence of a more diverse health and well-being workforce. Effective health promotion solutions that meet the needs of a diverse array of team members cannot be developed without more representation of those voices and perspectives. If an employee calls an employee assistance program, will there be culturally and racially diverse experts with whom they can speak? Are we sensitive enough to the fact that there is more stigma about mental health among Black team members?” Johnson also notes that whether “we work in corporate, not-for-profit, or academic settings, we must ask how, as a field, we can use white privilege to support Black colleagues and to ensure that there is a diversity of thought in all of our well-being initiatives. Many are saying that it is time to desegregate the workforce in health care and make mastery of the effects of structural racism a core professional medical competency.” 2,12
“Effective health promotion solutions that meet the needs of a diverse array of team members cannot be developed without more representation of those voices and perspectives.” Sara Johnson
I have every confidence that in Johnson’s roles as co-editor of the “Knowing Well, Being Well” section of AJHP and via her leadership as organizer of the national “Art and Science of Health Promotion” conference, she is role modeling recruitment of diverse faculty and journal contributors who will bring more broadly gauged thinking about health equity into our profession. Reviewing other studies and articles by these award winners shows that health promotion researchers are offering ever more sophisticated insights into social forces that shape behaviors, policies that change cultures and interventions aimed at fostering inclusion. Reread these manuscripts and you will see this year’s winners addressed the impact of state health policies on eating behaviors, the role of leaders in influencing employee health practices and the role of physicians in influencing patient health practices. You will also see how researchers are studying psychological and emotional resiliency in ever more specific populations such as in Navajo women or those who have suffered adverse childhood events. You will also surely share my observation that our field has never been more focused on studying social determinants of health and looking for solutions to health disparities.
We honored Dr. Laura Beebe and colleagues in our “Michael P. O’Donnell Paper of the Year” category for their observational study of predictors for re-enrollment in a tobacco helpline. O’Donnell is this journal’s founder and Editor in Chief Emeritus and given O’Donnell’s long-standing tobacco control advocacy and his leadership in enforcing tobacco policies at the Cleveland Clinic and in the State of Ohio and nationally, I’m certain he resonated with the innovative opportunities reflected in Beebe’s study findings about how to engage more smokers and affect greater quit rates. Specifically, Beebe’s team examined how an individual services, such as a nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) follow up call, compared to a multiple call smoking quit-line. They found those who received NRT were 15% more likely to re-enroll in individual services than those who were not reached by phone and concluded that “access to free NRT without a telephone-coaching requirement is a draw for tobacco users, especially those with lower income and the uninsured.” 4,12
Dr. Pamela Sinicrope and colleagues won our “Dorothy Nyswander Paper of the Year Award” for their pilot study of a cancer literacy project for Navajo women. Nyswander is considered the pioneer of the field of health education and she called for an “open society” which was a society “where diversity is respected; where pressure groups cannot stifle and control the will of the majority or castigate the individual; where education brings upward mobility to all; where the best of health care is available to all; where poverty is a community disgrace not an individual’s weakness.” 13 Consistent with Nyswander’s philosophy about the value of education, Sinicrope’s intervention influenced a 57% mammography completion rate compared to the 27% completion rates of those without such support. Navajo women offered educational support were also significantly more likely to have “breast cancer beliefs consistent with mammography.” 5,13
The 2020 pandemic has underscored the tremendous heroism of our nation’s healthcare professionals but has also amplified the extraordinary stress that has been mounting for years in their ranks. “The Editor in Chief’s Review Article of the Year” was an impressive systematic review led by Dr. Bernadette Melnyk to examine interventions aimed at improving well-being and mental health for physicians and nurse. Melnyk’s team found 29 studies that satisfied their inclusion criteria which focused on randomized controlled trials with outcomes targeting mental health, resiliency and healthy lifestyle behavior. In addition to affirming that cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness interventions have demonstrated success in reducing stress and depression, their review also suggests brief bouts of deep breathing and gratitude may be beneficial. 3,13 Melnyk’s authorship team was full of RN’s, MD’s and clinicians and I’m hopeful the health benefits of gratitude works both ways as I know countless others like me are deeply grateful for their indefatigability during this pandemic and for their leadership and commitment to health promotion.
Reason, Romance and Passion
Trying to put your study’s findings in the context of knowledge that preceded your hypothesis has always impressed me as the hardest, but also the most enjoyable part of research. That’s why when I co-author original research papers, I have always taken lead on drafting the discussion section. When you read these award-winning author’s discussion sections you will see how they applied what they learned to continuous improvement for our discipline, to enlarging our field’s reach and to producing a more equitable world. Stephen Hawking said that “science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.” 14 These leaders show us how fastidious study methods and accessible scientific writing can be intentionally aligned with compassionate advocacy for health and well-being for all. Congratulations to these first authors and co-authors. We dedicate our selection and publishing of these “best papers” to all health promotion scientists who are confronting health disparities and working to achieve equity in workplaces, families and communities.