Past, Present, and Future of the International Journal of Health Services

Abstract

The International Journal of Health Services was established more than half a century ago to provide a forum for the analysis of those services that have as an explicit function the prevention of disease and promotion of health, understanding health (as the World Health Organization’s Constitution does) “as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This understanding of health includes quality of life and the biological, psychological, and social well-being of the individual and of the population: health is both an individual and a collective phenomenon. Several people who were instrumental in the development of that WHO definition of health, such as Karl Evang (co-founder of the WHO and previously Director of the Norwegian Directorate for Health) and John Brotherston (who had been Professor of Public Health and Social Medicine in Edinburgh and, later, Chief Medical Officer of Scotland), encouraged the establishment of this journal. I had been a student of Brotherston in the early 1960 s at the Usher Institute in Edinburgh and had the pleasure to know Evang when he visited what was then called the John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. I consulted with them, and they were both very supportive of the Journal’s creation. The key person in the establishment of the Journal, however, was Professor Kerr L. White, a Canadian who had played an important role in the founding of the National Health Program in Canada. Hopkins invited him to establish the Department of Medical Care and Hospitals, and Kerr invited me to join the department when I finished my studies in Scotland. One of his first requests of me when I joined the faculty was to start the Journal, a proposal I had made previously. Many others added their voices to support the need for the Journal. From the beginning, the Journal had the vocation of learning about reality in order to change it—that is, to improve it. The period in which the journal was founded, the early 1970 s, was a moment of great creativity and inquiry in academic institutions in many parts of the world. It had followed the 1960 s, known for their questioning of the excessive conservative values and policies carried out in the 1950 s. It was in this context that scholars from many parts of the world agreed on establishing the Journal with the title International Journal of Health Services. The word “International” signaled the desire to have a broad plurality of positions between, among, and within countries, providing a forum for debate on the major issues of the moment. An Editorial Board with approximately 30 well-known and highly respected scholars from many countries, assisted by an equally international body of Editorial Consultants who constituted the axis of an extensive network of reviewers, guaranteed—and continues to guarantee—the excellence and scientific rigor of the articles and contributions to the Journal. Their function was to assist the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors in the Journal’s leadership. During this half a century, the Editorial Board and Editorial Consultants have changed, but a special note of thanks is owed to a minority who have volunteered to serve throughout the whole period. Among them was Giovanni Berlinguer from Italy, who died a few years ago. We miss him and are grateful for his endurance, generosity, and commitment to the Journal. The International Journal of Health Services has always been independent and not tied to any association or institute. A note of appreciation, however, needs to be made to the International Association of Health Policy, the largest international association among professionals and scholars working on health policy, also established in that period, who saw a great need for the Journal and helped in its promotion, particularly in Latin America. The Journal was owned initially by Baywood Publishers, which was later acquired by Sage, the largest academic publisher in the United States. The sponsor has always been the School of Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University. As a member of its faculty, I was the journal’s Founding Editor and have been its Editor in Chief from the beginning. The leadership of the Journal has included an excellent group of Associate Editors (recently, David Himmelstein of the City University of New York and Harvard University in the United States, Carles Muntaner of the University of Toronto in Canada, and Stephanie Woolhandler of the City University of New York and Harvard University in the I. Letter from the Editor