Materia Socio Medica is Indexed in Pubmed and Archived in PubMed Central.

Materia Socio Medica Journal has been accepted for archiving in PubMed Central from 2011. The journal started in 1993 as offi cial journal of Social Medicine Association of B&H. During last 3 years Mat Soc Med has included in almost all femous on-line databases (except WoS). All issues of Mat Soc Med published in 2012 are now visible on PubMed/PubMed Central.

This year (2013) we are celebrating a significant anniversary - 35-years anniversary of the scientific journal Materia Socio Medica. The journal was founded in 1978 and then was registered as Materia Socio Medica Iugoslavica - scientific and professional journal of the Yugoslav Association of Social Medicine. The founder of the journal was the Section for Social Medicine of the Association of Physicians of B&H, otherwise one of the alliance members of the Association of Social Medicine of Yugoslavia. The creator and first Editor-in-Chief of the journal was Professor Arif Smajkic, president of the Association for Social Medicine of Yugoslavia. The headquarters of the Editorial Board of the journal was in Sarajevo since its establishment until termination of its publication in 1990. After Arif Smajkic, for a period of time the journal was edited by doctor Zvonimir Tolj from Mostar. Editorial Board of the Journal MATERIA SOCIO MEDICA IUGOSLAVICA 1978 (first issue) consisted of: Arif Smajkic (Editor-in-Chief), Zvoni- mir Tolj (Executive Editor), Predrag Jelaca, Luka Kovacic, Tomislav Markovic (Secretaries); Bobo Samardzic (Technical Editor), Djurdja Cokorilo (Lector) and members: Enver Baraku (Prishtina), Predrag Micovic (Belgrade), Sasa Cvahte (Ljubljana), Josip Dulic (Novi Sad), Zelimir Jaksic (Zagreb), Petar Stavridis (Skopje), Ivo Djurisic (Titograd).

The original intention of journal initiators was to publish works in the field of Social medicine and health care organizations, or in the area of planning and programming of health care, health economics, health informatics, health promotion, sociology, medical ethics, organization and protection of population and nosological groups, etc. Since Social medicine and its specific scientific disciplines at the time were at a very high level and among the most developed in Europe there was a need that in the former Yugoslavia is formed one such journal that would cover all of these disciplines. An important fact is that in Europe there were a lot of journals that covered these contents and Yugoslav experts had the opportunity to publish their scientific papers in such journals. On the other hand, Social medicine and health care organizations have had intensive development trend which has been reflected in a steady and continuous organization of scientific conferences in this field in all the republics of former Yugoslavia, where was presented hundreds of very high quality papers whose contents significantly influenced the development of health care policy, from the local to the highest institutional levels in B&H and also throughout the former Yugoslavia. Also on Biomedical faculties in B&H and other republics of the former Yugoslavia were.

The journal in over ten years of its existance, has published more than 1000 scientific and professional papers, by very eminent experts in the field of Social medicine and health care organizations, most of which were presented at three conferences of Social medicine and health care organizations, including: Sarajevo in 1978, Belgrade in 1982 and Zagreb in 1988, and the annual meetings of Social Medicine, which have traditionally been organized on mountain Igman called „Igman Midterms of Social Medicine“ where was presented an aver- age of 50 to 100 reports of experts in Social Medicine from the former Yugoslavia. Also, a few issues thematically cover special international scientific conferences, as it was organized in Sarajevo 1979 and was devoted to the topic „An analysis of national health care system“ at which 22 eminent European professors of Social Medicine (Kesic, Zar- kovic, Macara, Deliege, Roedling, Swonstrom, Lindgren, and others), published their papers in a separate thematic issue. In particular, we highlight the topic of the journal Mat Soc Med Iugoslavica from 1981 dedicated to the organization of primary health care whose works have been presented at the Symposium on this subject in Mostar. Finally, an important contingent of papers published in the journal Mat Soc Med Iugoslavica, was dedicated to issues on the utilization of hospital capacity in B&H, as well as in Europe. Most of the articles are related to the presentation of the results of the above named study carried out in 10 countries in Europe and a significant contingent of works performed in the 10th year of continuous cooperation of the Yugoslav and Swedish Association of Social Medicine („Yugoslav- Swedish Days of Social Medicine“), in which the eminent scholars of Social Medicine from all university centers of the former Yugoslavia the results of these studies were published in papers with these sets in the journal Materia Socio Medica Iugoslavica. (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Cover pages of published journal from diff erent periods.

Journal Materia Socio Medica Iugoslavica is due to the war in B&H stopped in the period since 1990 to 2000, and with the formation of the Association for Social Medicine - Public Health of B&H at the Inaugural Meeting of the Association held in March 2000 in Tuzla, the journal is revitalized again with a new name Materia Socio Medica and as such is issued today (1, 2, 3). During this year will be issued its 25th volume. Editorial Board of the Journal MATERIA SOCIO MEDICA 2000 included Professor Izet Masic (Editor-in-Chief), Irena Jokic (Secretary), Mirza Hamzic (Technical Editor) and members: Ivan Bagaric (Sarajevo), Zijad Bešlagic (Tuzla), Senad Huseinagic (Zenica), Zdenko Krajnc (Travnik), Dragana Niksic (Sarajevo), Ajnija Omanic (Sarajevo), Aida Pasic (Tuzla), Habiba Salihovic (Sarajevo), Arif Smajkic (Sarajevo), Selim Toromanovic (Cazin).

Since the Association for Social Medicine - Public Health of B&H was organized relatively late, and the reasons were wartime and post-war conditions in which the experts in this area have been little or insufficiently engaged for various reasons, which among other things resulted in the relatively small number of specialist of Social Medicine actively engaged in its reputation. Among other things, the strategic objectives of the Association opted to issue the journal, but under different name. The journal was originally published as a double issue of the first three volumes and it is very significant and very quickly become recognizable in B&H, and the wider former Yugoslav region. In 2001 the Association organized the First Congress of Social Medicine and Health Care Organization in Sarajevo, and on that occasion many of the experts in Social Medi- cine from former Yugoslav republics attended this Congress, from which was published more than 60 papers in several issues of the Materia Socio Medica. The Association has established a traditional organization of the conference “Days of Social Medicine” (Tuzla 2002, Zenica 2003, Cazin 2004, Lukavac 2005, Travnik 2006, Blagaj 2008, Zenica 2010) where in average was presented about fifty scientific and professional papers. Most of those, after the detailed review was published in the journal Materia Socio Medica. Also, in 2007 in Neum was organized the Second Congress of Social Medicine and Health Care Organizations, from which are published in several is- sues presented works. Since 2005 Materia Socio Medica has been published in four issues per year, with high quality content and technical quality of the work predominantly in English, which has raised even more the rating of the journal. That’s why we started the initiative of its inclusion in indexing databases. Today’s Materia Socio Medica is reputable scientific journal of international character, included in more than 20 online biomedical databases. Since the 2009 when was founded the Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina the journal Materia Socio Medica becomes official scientific journal of the Association, given that the Public Health Association of B&H ceased its activities. Indisputable fact is that the journal Materia Socio Medica is at the shelves of all libraries of major university centers in Europe and in the world speaks a lot about its importance. Its entry in the database PubMed/PubMed Central will even more raise its scientific rating for years to come. (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Submiting, reviewing and accepting process to MSM.