- Email: [email protected]
Golden anniversary issue editorial
Social Science & Medicine xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Social Science & Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed
Golden anniversary issue editorial
Happy 50th anniversary to us! The inaugural issue of Social Science & Medicine was published in 1967. Peter J. M. McEwan as founding editor set down some of the enduring parameters for the journal: an international scope, an interdisciplinary character, an empirical thrust grounded in original conceptualizations and fresh theorizations, and a broad mission to examine “problems of human well-being.” Appropriately for the birth of a new journal, the first article examined “The definition and value of a new human life” (Knutson, 1967). The journal never aimed to generate a social science party-line consensus but instead advocated a lively intellectual exchange by actively encouraging debates on contentious materials, “fairness and fearlessness” as McEwan put it in his valedictory editorial. We continue this tradition by soliciting commentaries on selected papers and by publishing internationally focused special issues. The journal's intended audience is not just social scientists but also includes health care practitioners, health policy makers, and patients. In fact, anyone who may have an interest in health is a potential reader. Articles in the journal regularly reach a broad audience with write-ups in the international news media. Social Science & Medicine remains a leader among its peer journals with a 2016 impact factor of 2.797 and a five-year impact factor of 3.505. Social Science & Medicine is headed by two editors-in-chief, Ichiro Kawachi and S. V. Subramanian, supervising seven independent editorial offices covering medical anthropology, health economics, social epidemiology, health psychology, medical geography, health policy, and medical sociology. If that may give the impression that we are multi-rather than interdisciplinary, the split allows for the appropriate expertise to be brought on manuscripts. The volume of submissions, currently more than 3500 each year, makes it impossible for one editor to manage or even read the full spectrum of manuscripts. As it is, several of the offices receive 1–3 submissions a day (of course, they don't come neatly spread over the year but bunch together at the end of summer breaks or teaching semesters). To avoid exhausting our pool of reviewers, the senior editors desk reject a large number of manuscripts that are better fits for different journals. Besides fit, the core criterion for inclusion of the journal is quality and ambition of the work: editors select submissions that move the fields' goalposts. The journal prides itself on a quick turnaround, with an average of 3.5 weeks for a first decision, and fast online and in print publication. Since 2015, we have an open access, peer reviewed, online sister journal, Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, that offers an even faster turn-around for replication studies, short communications, and methodological pieces. In this special issue, the senior editors review the highlights of their subfield and look forward to what is to come. The bread and butter of the journal remains an exploration of health inequities, how different groups of people are at a disadvantage or benefit more than others with regard to morbidity and mortality. Contributors examine health inequalities along lines of race, class, gender, nationality, and region. They trace the disparities through micro-interactions of conversations between care providers and patients and the macro-world of political economies addressing global epidemics over time, looking for fundamental causes and engines of these persistent inequities. Compared to the previous decades, the last ten years have seen a much more sophisticated engagement with biology to address health inequities. Where in the past, social science could be negatively defined as anything that does not include biology, current research includes genetic and other biomarkers along more traditional social variables. This exciting research endeavor does not result in biological determinism but often demonstrates the limits of biology and the saliency of social factors to mediate or compensate for health outcomes. A growing trend in the journal has been the bifurcation of research that takes medical care as its topic or addresses health beyond the doctor's office. The journal originated as a voice of the social sciences in dialogue with medical professionals. A large proportion of manuscripts still examines the traditionally defined social aspects of medicine (e.g., patient-doctor interaction, cultural health beliefs, medical communication) while others situate health care technologies, services, and systems within national and international comparisons. One warrant for these studies is adding the missing voices of patients and consumers to the conversation and to demonstrate that medicine and health care is social to the bone. With the ascent of social epidemiology and support of the other disciplines, the examination of health beyond medical care has gained ground in the journal, focusing on the social determinants of neighborhoods, citizenship, and demographics for health outcomes. Another line of separation lies between the contributions doing health research in the sense of making primary empirical discoveries about illness and medicine and those critically reflecting on health discourse and policy assumptions. Both approaches share a focus on health but while the first group wants a place at the table directly influencing health policy, the second group examines the table from a social science distance. Still, while the epistemological assumptions differ and both groups tally winners and losers differently, the approaches complement each other: the former provides social science evidence, the second examines how evidence can make a difference. In 2007, then editor-in-chief Ellen Annandale reflected that the dialogue between social and medical sciences was becoming robust, in part due to the leadership of Social Science & Medicine. A decade later, there is no longer a question of social science looking from the periphery to the center of medicine. The subareas of this journal along with bioethics, medical history, and health communication have proven their staying power in all areas of health research. Health is more than getting pills into bodies, and even getting pills into bodies is fundamentally a social process that incorporates https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.005 Received 2 November 2017; Accepted 3 November 2017 0277-9536/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Social Science & Medicine xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
communication, marketing, money, infrastructures, and a particular set of beliefs that links pharmaceuticals to health. Looking over editorials of the past decades, it is clear that any prediction of what the future of the social study of health and illness entails will inevitably fall short. Will more sophisticated social network methods reveal the persistency of stratified health care access? Is the turn to social media, religious health beliefs, and self-care a harbinger of crumbling social welfare health systems? Will the health toll of natural disasters, infectious diseases, and global warming spill over into work, family, and leisure? We would like to thank everyone who has been a staunch builder of the journal behind the scenes: past editors and editorial board members, editorial assistants, and Elsevier's dedicated production and management personnel. We remain also grateful for the guidance for our international Advisory Editors and of you, in your roles as authors, reviewers, and readers, for guaranteeing half a century of success. We plan to call on all of you for the next decades of Social Science & Medicine research excitement. Reference Knutson, A.L., 1967. The definition and value of a new human life. Soc. Sci. Med. 1, 1–5.
Stefan Timmermans UCLA, United States E-mail address: [email protected]
2
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Social Science & Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed
Golden anniversary issue editorial
Happy 50th anniversary to us! The inaugural issue of Social Science & Medicine was published in 1967. Peter J. M. McEwan as founding editor set down some of the enduring parameters for the journal: an international scope, an interdisciplinary character, an empirical thrust grounded in original conceptualizations and fresh theorizations, and a broad mission to examine “problems of human well-being.” Appropriately for the birth of a new journal, the first article examined “The definition and value of a new human life” (Knutson, 1967). The journal never aimed to generate a social science party-line consensus but instead advocated a lively intellectual exchange by actively encouraging debates on contentious materials, “fairness and fearlessness” as McEwan put it in his valedictory editorial. We continue this tradition by soliciting commentaries on selected papers and by publishing internationally focused special issues. The journal's intended audience is not just social scientists but also includes health care practitioners, health policy makers, and patients. In fact, anyone who may have an interest in health is a potential reader. Articles in the journal regularly reach a broad audience with write-ups in the international news media. Social Science & Medicine remains a leader among its peer journals with a 2016 impact factor of 2.797 and a five-year impact factor of 3.505. Social Science & Medicine is headed by two editors-in-chief, Ichiro Kawachi and S. V. Subramanian, supervising seven independent editorial offices covering medical anthropology, health economics, social epidemiology, health psychology, medical geography, health policy, and medical sociology. If that may give the impression that we are multi-rather than interdisciplinary, the split allows for the appropriate expertise to be brought on manuscripts. The volume of submissions, currently more than 3500 each year, makes it impossible for one editor to manage or even read the full spectrum of manuscripts. As it is, several of the offices receive 1–3 submissions a day (of course, they don't come neatly spread over the year but bunch together at the end of summer breaks or teaching semesters). To avoid exhausting our pool of reviewers, the senior editors desk reject a large number of manuscripts that are better fits for different journals. Besides fit, the core criterion for inclusion of the journal is quality and ambition of the work: editors select submissions that move the fields' goalposts. The journal prides itself on a quick turnaround, with an average of 3.5 weeks for a first decision, and fast online and in print publication. Since 2015, we have an open access, peer reviewed, online sister journal, Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, that offers an even faster turn-around for replication studies, short communications, and methodological pieces. In this special issue, the senior editors review the highlights of their subfield and look forward to what is to come. The bread and butter of the journal remains an exploration of health inequities, how different groups of people are at a disadvantage or benefit more than others with regard to morbidity and mortality. Contributors examine health inequalities along lines of race, class, gender, nationality, and region. They trace the disparities through micro-interactions of conversations between care providers and patients and the macro-world of political economies addressing global epidemics over time, looking for fundamental causes and engines of these persistent inequities. Compared to the previous decades, the last ten years have seen a much more sophisticated engagement with biology to address health inequities. Where in the past, social science could be negatively defined as anything that does not include biology, current research includes genetic and other biomarkers along more traditional social variables. This exciting research endeavor does not result in biological determinism but often demonstrates the limits of biology and the saliency of social factors to mediate or compensate for health outcomes. A growing trend in the journal has been the bifurcation of research that takes medical care as its topic or addresses health beyond the doctor's office. The journal originated as a voice of the social sciences in dialogue with medical professionals. A large proportion of manuscripts still examines the traditionally defined social aspects of medicine (e.g., patient-doctor interaction, cultural health beliefs, medical communication) while others situate health care technologies, services, and systems within national and international comparisons. One warrant for these studies is adding the missing voices of patients and consumers to the conversation and to demonstrate that medicine and health care is social to the bone. With the ascent of social epidemiology and support of the other disciplines, the examination of health beyond medical care has gained ground in the journal, focusing on the social determinants of neighborhoods, citizenship, and demographics for health outcomes. Another line of separation lies between the contributions doing health research in the sense of making primary empirical discoveries about illness and medicine and those critically reflecting on health discourse and policy assumptions. Both approaches share a focus on health but while the first group wants a place at the table directly influencing health policy, the second group examines the table from a social science distance. Still, while the epistemological assumptions differ and both groups tally winners and losers differently, the approaches complement each other: the former provides social science evidence, the second examines how evidence can make a difference. In 2007, then editor-in-chief Ellen Annandale reflected that the dialogue between social and medical sciences was becoming robust, in part due to the leadership of Social Science & Medicine. A decade later, there is no longer a question of social science looking from the periphery to the center of medicine. The subareas of this journal along with bioethics, medical history, and health communication have proven their staying power in all areas of health research. Health is more than getting pills into bodies, and even getting pills into bodies is fundamentally a social process that incorporates https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.005 Received 2 November 2017; Accepted 3 November 2017 0277-9536/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Social Science & Medicine xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
communication, marketing, money, infrastructures, and a particular set of beliefs that links pharmaceuticals to health. Looking over editorials of the past decades, it is clear that any prediction of what the future of the social study of health and illness entails will inevitably fall short. Will more sophisticated social network methods reveal the persistency of stratified health care access? Is the turn to social media, religious health beliefs, and self-care a harbinger of crumbling social welfare health systems? Will the health toll of natural disasters, infectious diseases, and global warming spill over into work, family, and leisure? We would like to thank everyone who has been a staunch builder of the journal behind the scenes: past editors and editorial board members, editorial assistants, and Elsevier's dedicated production and management personnel. We remain also grateful for the guidance for our international Advisory Editors and of you, in your roles as authors, reviewers, and readers, for guaranteeing half a century of success. We plan to call on all of you for the next decades of Social Science & Medicine research excitement. Reference Knutson, A.L., 1967. The definition and value of a new human life. Soc. Sci. Med. 1, 1–5.
Stefan Timmermans UCLA, United States E-mail address: [email protected]
2