Today the Managing Editor of the International Journal of Public Health, Anke Berger, introduces us to a new exciting section of the journal.
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Public health is by definition closely related to the welfare of both the individual and the community, which should theoretically make it one of the most applied scientific disciplines. One would expect from public health research to develop and provide scientists, practitioners and policy makers with useful methods and models in order to facilitate the direct connection between scientific knowledge and practice. However, it seems that public-health research is just at its first steps on transferring knowledge and so far incentives to tread this path come mainly from the fields of health promotion and medical sociology.
Following an incentive by the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), IJPH developed a new section called “Knowledge synthesis, translation and exchange” (KSTE). Louise Potvin and Thomas Abel (2010) in an Editorial introducing the section acknowledge that “for the past 10-15 years, and following the lead of clinical medicine, there has been a strong movement within public-health to foster evidence-based practices”. Consequently, “there is an undoubtedly increasing demand for high quality syntheses of primary evaluation of public and population health programs (the syntheses part) and for their formatting into products that will support the development of a professional ethos of research informed praxis (the transfer and exchange part)”.
The aim of KSTE is to provide students and experts in public health and health economics with the knowledge they need for effective public health interventions. The section editor is Professor Louise Potvin, a health promotion specialist at the University of Montréal , and a member of the IJPH Editorial Board(. The section opened in January 2011. If you are interested to submit a paper to the section please refer to the above-mentioned Editorial by Potvin and Abel (2010) for more details on which articles would qualify for the section.
Anke Berger, PhD
Managing Editor
International Journal of Public Health
