journal article
LitStream Collection
Update from the editors at health policy and planning
Salaria, Natasha; Wiseman, Virginia; Mounier-Jack, Sandra
doi: 10.1093/heapol/czab106pmid: 34508261
The year of 2020 was a difficult and uncertain year for most. It has allowed us to reflect on our journal practices and processes as well as future changes to improve our quality, speed of publication and, most importantly, the author experience of publishing in Health Policy and Planning. Impact factor We are pleased to announce that we have seen an increase in our impact factor for 2020, which has gone up to 3.344. Our 5-year impact factor comes in at 3.902. The new impact factor keeps us in Quartile 1 of the Health Policy and Services category, with Health Policy and Planning listed as 19th out of 88 journals. You can read more on our blog site, Health Policy and Planning Debated (https://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/hppdebated/2021/08/16/health-policy-and-plannings-top-10-articles-contributing-to-the-2020-impact-factor/). Supplements In 2020 we published another two supplements, accompanied by podcasts with authors. The first was on Health Systems Research Mentoring: Supporting early career women in low- and middle-income countries (low- and middle-income countries (LMICSs); https://academic.oup.com/heapol/issue/35/Supplement_1) and was designed to support women authors from LMICs in publishing in an academic journal for the first time. The second was a supplement showcasing innovations in implementation research in an effort to enhance its value and shape its development, fuelling growth in this field of research; Innovations in Implementation Research in LMICs (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/issue/35/Supplement_2). We collated new Research Collections including one on the Evidence to inform the COVID-19 Response (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/pages/evidence-to-inform-the-covid-19-response) and others paying tribute to friends and colleagues we lost in 2020 including Professor Val Curtis (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/pages/val-curtis) and Dr Bart Jacobs (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/pages/bart-jacobs). In 2021, we have an upcoming supplement in collaboration with Health Systems Global, the organizer of the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. This supplement will focus on the symposium’s overarching theme ‘Re-imagining health systems for better health and social justice’, including three sub-themes on Engaging political forces; Engaging social, economic and environmental forces; and Engaging technological, data and social innovations. We aim to publish this supplement in November 2021. If you are interested in publishing a supplement with us, please do contact our editorial office ([email protected]). COVID-19 research priorities call for papers In a previous Commentary (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/35/9/1231/5918196), ideas about a research agenda for health policy and systems research linked to COVID-19 were outlined. This agenda not only addresses the current shorter-term challenges and responses, but also calls for work on the system transformations needed to strengthen people-centred and equitable health systems (Gilson et al., 2020 #5672). With this soon to be released call for papers, we aim to gather important insights and understandings about how responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have offered opportunities for strengthening socially just health systems. Please keep an eye out for this call for papers and submission details in 2021. Production and processing times/new section editors One major decision we made on 1 March 2021 was moving to a new production supplier. In 2019 and 2020 we experienced a slowdown in service provided to authors at the production end and after careful consideration of the author journey, we made the bold decision to switch suppliers. We want to thank all our authors for bearing with us during this time and for your patience. We have seen a marked improvement in response times and publication times since this move and we are confident this was the right decision. In terms of our processing times to reach a first decision and to reach a final decision, in 2020 these were 48 days and 170 days, respectively—a marked improvement from previous years. New section editors As mentioned, we have been working hard to lower our processing times and have recently recruited new section editors to assist with this as well as to better improve our representation and diversity on the Health Policy and Planning Editorial Board. We acknowledge we have some way to go but we make a commitment to this as a long-term strategy and we acknowledge we can do better as a journal and as a community. Welcome to our new Section Editors! Health Systems Research Dr Prashanth N.S., The Institute of Public Health in India Implementation Research and Evaluation Dr Euphemia Sibanda, The Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research in Zimbabwe as well as having a position at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine New statistical Editors Dr Joel Francis, University of Witswatersrand, South Africa Dr David Boettiger, University of New South Wales Reviewer appreciation We have also been reflecting on ways we can show our appreciation for our journal reviewers and have recently published our annual reviewer acknowledgement (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/36/6/999/6256785). Health Policy and Planning depends on a dedicated and generous group of reviewers and without their input, we would not be able to provide high-quality papers to our readers. We have a page dedicated to our top two reviewers from 2020 (https://academic.oup.com/heapol/pages/thank-you-to-our-reviewers) and we also provide article processing charge discounts to our top reviewers each year along with online access to Oxford Medicine for a period of time. We are continuously looking into new initiatives with our publisher to show our gratitude and appreciation for our reviewers. Transformative journal status Health Policy and Planning will be moving to a transformative agreement to ensure we are fully compliant with Plan S and Coalition S. Coalition S have noted they will review the situation in 2024 and we will be monitoring this landscape very closely. If you have any questions about this or funder compliancy, please do email the editorial office for further support and advice ([email protected]). Finally, we would like to thank our section editors for all of their unwavering time and commitment to their roles with Health Policy and Planning, even during a turbulent and difficult time and to our publisher as well as you, the reader, for all of your support. Sandra Mounier, Jack and Virginia Wiseman (Editors-in-Chiefs) Natasha Salaria (Journal Development and Communications Officer) Reference Gilson L , Marchal B, Ayepong I et al. 2020 . What role can health policy and systems research play in supporting responses to COVID-19 that strengthen socially just health systems? . Health policy and planning 35 : 1231 – 6 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS PubMed WorldCat © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)