Abstract
In the editorial of our first issue back in February 1989, the clear impetus for launching the Journal of Aging and Health (JAH) was thought to be the rapid and accelerated aging in Western industrial societies. Today, things are quite different for JAH and the field of aging and health with increasing attention to aging in the developing world by both researchers and policy makers. In this brief editorial, we go back to take a look at the first 3 years of JAH (1989-1991) and compare that early experience with our experience during our last 3 years (2013-2015). We give special attention to the source of manuscripts received and published as well as how the content areas of manuscripts published have evolved over the last 25 years.
During JAH’s first 3 years, we received an average of 90 new submissions per year and published 27 of them for an acceptance rate of around 30%. That was a comfortable number of submissions that resulted in four solid issues each year. Things changed gradually resulting in an accelerated number of submissions over the last 25 years or so. During our last 3 years, we received an average of 540 new submissions and published 80 manuscripts in eight issues in each year for an acceptance rate of just below 15%. In our first 3 years, we conducted peer reviews on more than 90% of manuscripts received. This percentage has declined to approximately 30% during the last 3 years, amounting to 162 manuscripts per year, of which approximately half eventually get published.
The content of the manuscripts we publish has not changed appreciably since 1989 to 1991, although a few new developments have become apparent. During 1989 to 1991, the top broad categories of our publications were as follows: Health Services/Medical Care, Institutionalization/Nursing Homes, Social Factors/Social Supports, and Mental Health/Well-Being. During 2013 to 2015, we observe the following top rankings: Disability/Physical Function, Mental Health/Well-Being, Social Factors/Social Supports, and Cognitive Function/Dementia. Clearly, these categories are very much in line with the broader field of aging and health, which has focused on four broad categories of quality of life that include the physical, psychological, social, and, increasingly, cognitive function. Notable are also new categories of published manuscripts during the last 3 years. Such new categories are as follows: Neighborhoods/Built Environment, Religion/Spirituality, Social Isolation/Loneliness, Sensory Impairment, Obesity/Weight, Same Sex Couples/Gay Men, Elder Abuse/Neglect, and End-of-Life. There are no surprises here except, perhaps, that we had no publications on obesity during our first 3 years.
The vast majority of the manuscripts published during 1989 to 1991 were from the United States with just a handful originating in Canada, Sweden, and Denmark. By 2013 to 2015, we published numerous foreign manuscripts with Asia being our leading source, followed by Northern/Western Europe, Latin America, Southern Europe, Canada, Australia, and Africa. Clearly, the field as measured by JAH publications is now much more international than it was around 1990. Although many of these are from Western countries, an increasing number are coming from developing parts of the world including Asia (especially China and India), Latin America (especially Brazil), Africa, and the Middle East (especially Iran). More than 58% of new submissions during the last 3 years have come from countries other than the United States. However, the number of papers accepted from the United States is considerably higher than the international manuscripts we publish, something we hope will change in the future.
Of course, we encourage the rising interest in JAH by scholars in developing regions of the world. At the same time, we acknowledge the greater challenges faced by scholars from developing countries in getting their manuscripts published in JAH and other English-language journals. English-language proficiency is one challenge. Another is the tendency to focus on the same topics covered by scholars in developed/Western countries. There is nothing wrong necessarily with replicating analyses using data from developing countries except that such focus is best accompanied by a conceptual approach or theory to the data that gives attention to factors that go beyond the individual country or region.
In this brief editorial, we noted the rapid growth of JAH, which no doubt is correlated with the rapid growth of the field of aging and health. We have also observed the emergence of new areas of inquiry such as neighborhoods/built environments, sensory impairment, and obesity. Even more notable has been the rapid growth of submissions of manuscripts from developing parts of the world reflecting the rising interest in aging and health issues by both scholars and policy makers in these regions.