Emerging health threats: why do they need a new journal?

This editorial heralds the online publication of a new, international, peer-reviewed, open access journal, dedicated to emerging threats to human health. The Journal is an initiative of the Emerging Health Threats Forum, an independent, not-for-profit association that was established with support from the UK's Health Protection Agency. This Journal builds on the Forum's extensive emerging health threats news service and weekly Emerging Health Threats Monitor, with original research articles, in-depth reviews, perspectives, commentaries, and policy reviews on emerging health threats.1 Policy reviews catalogue strategies used to address threats, and appraise their effectiveness. Unique to the Emerging Health Threats Journal will be a new article type on strategic lessons learned. This will capture the critical lessons in disaster and other crisis responses that are often overlooked until they are relearned yet again in the next disaster.

What are emerging health threats and why is a new journal needed? Emerging health threats are the myriad of new and evolving health issues that society faces on a daily basis, including new infectious diseases, chemical and environmental hazards, radiation exposure, disasters, and cultural and population health issues. One issue of the Emerging Health Threats Monitor alone includes topics as diverse as the effects of climate change on developing countries, the effects of traffic pollution on children, the fatal impact of environmental arsenic, and the outbreak of Rift Valley fever in the Comoros Islands.2

There is a wide range of journals that provide coverage in narrow fields of emerging health threats, particularly in areas such as infectious disease and disaster medicine, and some, such as Emerging Infectious Disease, are also available online and in an open access format. A review of the US National Library of Medicine PubMed Database, however, shows that many key articles are in very dissimilar and sometimes difficult to access journals, from, for example, the Journal of Veterinary Science to the Danish Medical Bulletin. The need to provide comprehensive reviews and original papers for a wide audience, particularly in an open access format, has led to the creation of this Journal. This Journal is not aiming to compete with the more specialised journals but seeks to identify and quantify the emerging trends in the public health and health protection arena that will focus of future research and publications in this and other journals.

Aims and Scope

is an international, peer-reviewed journal publishing the latest and best research on emerging threats to human health. Its focus is threats from any source, including the environment, chemicals, radiation, pathogens, and society. It welcomes papers on the preparedness and response to natural or man-made disasters, including those that involve the deliberate release of chemical, biological, or radionuclear material. Content will be determined by novelty and scope of the threat, and by scientific excellence. The Journal welcomes investigative studies that promote the understanding of factors involved in the emergence, prevention, and elimination of health threats. Articles on lessons learned from disaster and crisis response are particularly encouraged. The Journal seeks high-quality submissions from academic, industrial, clinical practice, public health, and government research and planning sectors across all of these areas.

Open access journals have become increasingly popular, with a number of professional associations and organisations making their journal article collections either partially or fully available on the Internet. As one of our journal partners, the Wellcome Trust, notes, 'the benefits of research are derived principally from access to research results',3 and publishing in an open access journal is an effective way to achieve that access for a global audience. A number of authors and funding authorities are taking this further, arguing that ethically all biomedical research should be published open access.4 Although this is not the forum to have that debate, there is good evidence that open access journals do provide the approach required to get emerging health threats and potential solutions to a wide audience, many of whom may have only limited access to other biomedical journals. There is also a clear citation advantage for open access articles, which should make publishing in the journal attractive to future authors and reviewers.5

Starting a new journal is always a challenge, not least when the potential topics are so varied. This is, however, a double-edged sword, as the focus must remain on emerging health threats and not on the more specific aspects of well-developed biomedical themes. This will mean that many good articles will not be suitable for this Journal. Conversely, articles that may have been turned away from other biomedical journals may be ideal for this Journal if they capture the emerging threat theme. Imminent articles, for example, will look at the chronic effects of mustard poisoning, hepatitis E, the development of national burn disaster plans, and the medical management of Polonium-210. I urge you to read the Aims and Scope of the Journal as outlined above and to consider submitting your work to us. New articles and reviews are always welcome and should be submitted online at http://www.eht-journal.org.