News
444
Notice of Publication
of the Revista
Panamericana de Salud PdblicalPan American
Journal ofPublic HeaZthl
In January 1997 PAHO will begin pub- lishing the Revista Panamericana de Sal& Ptiblica/Pan American Journal of Public Health, which will continue the Boletin de la Ofcina Sanitaria Panamericana and the Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization. This mea-
sure, recommended by the PAHO Publica- tions Committee, was recently approved by Dr. George A. 0. Alleyne, Director of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau.
The Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica/ Pan American Journal of Public Health will not only be the fruit of the joining of the Boletin de la OSP and the Bulletin of PAHO; it will also include material from Education Medica y Salud and other PAHO publications that have been discontinued. The new multilin- gual journal will be issued monthly, will have a large format (approximately 22 X
28 cm), and will publish texts in the official languages of the Organization.
The decision to publish this new PAHO journal stems from a variety of circum- stances. The Boletin de la Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana, the principal periodical pub- lication of PAHO and one which has been published monthly since 1922, has always had a large pressrun (more than 10 000 cop- ies), and is consulted and cited by health
* This text was prepared by the Editorial Staff of the Boletin de la OSP and the Bulletin of PAHO and approved by the PAHO Publications Committee.
276 Bulletin of PAHO 30(3), 1996
professionals throughout the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Bul- letin of the Pan American Health Organization began publication in 1966 and has had a smaller pressrun (currently some 4 000 cop- ies), given that its audience in the English- speaking countries of North America and the Caribbean is limited by the existence of many other English-language public health journals. That fact, together with rising postal costs, the financial restrictions now facing the Organization, and new technolo- gies for the electronic dissemination of in- formation (Internet, World Wide Web), has led to the creation of the new journal, with the intention of saving resources on tradi- tional methods of information dissemina- tion in order to, among other things, invest in the modern communication media, which are rapidly expanding their reach.
Internet, where the table of contents and the abstracts of the articles in each issue of the Boletin and Bulletin are published. This on- line presence will continue and will be aug- mented for the new journal.
Given the needs of the Organization and its member countries, the main language of the Revista Panamericana de Salud Ptiblica/ Pan American Journal of Public Health will be Spanish, but a considerable amount of ma- terial will be published in English and Por- tuguese. The language or languages in which an article is published will be de- cided by the Editorial Staff of the journal on the basis of the segment(s) of the public for which the article would hold the great- est scientific interest, not on the basis of the language in which it was originally writ- ten. When deemed appropriate, an article of high quality and special interest to the international audience will be published in two languages-one of them English-m different issues of the journal. All articles will have two abstracts, in English and ei- ther Spanish or Portuguese. Each section of the journal may include works in any of the official languages of PAHO.
The new Revista Panamericana de Salud Ptiblica/Pan American Journal of Public
Health will have two basic objectives: to publish research and review articles on public health subjects of interest in the countries of the Americas, and to make known the activities and priorities of the Pan American Health Organization and cooperation with the member countries. The bulk of the material published in the journal will have been selected through the scientific peer review process, which en- joys the collaboration of a team of internal
(within PAHO) and external reviewers who have helped evaluate works submit- ted for publication in the Boletin de la OSP and Bulletin of PAHO. The new journal will also publish sections containing informa- tion on essential drugs, human resources and medical education, and other selected topics.
The Pan American Health Organization calls on all health science and public health professionals in the Region to contribute
their comments and, above all, their manu- scripts to the new Revista Panamericana de Salud Ptiblica/Pan American Journal of Public Health, whose overriding purpose will be to promote the health of all the peoples of the Americas through the dissemination of use- ful scientific knowledge and research results.
