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In this editorial the authors introduce a systems science approach to advancing public health through this journal. They want to do this in order to capture a complex system that values leadership, science and its translation, policy, and the publication of research on public health as well as practice papers that are concerned with improving population health.

The article shares tips for publishing in the journal to avoid desk rejections and unwarranted frustration. Information on the review process for article submissions by prospective authors is provided. Common causes of desk rejections include outdated data and low priority in terms of novelty or mainly of local interest. It advises prospective authors to read the journal's Instructions for Authors and familiarize themselves with its mission to reduce desk rejections.

The article invites applications of manuscripts on HIV prevention among ethnic and minority populations in the U.S., for a special issue of the "Journal of Health Education," which will be produced by the Association for the Advancement of Health Education.

The article presents the author's view on peer reviewing of journals particularly those included in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). One study made by the National Science Foundation states that if a paper is submitted to enough journals, it stands a good chance of being published. About 25 percent of the papers reviewed by AJPH have been submitted to another journal.

Today, as access to women's reproductive health care in the United States has proven less than ensured, it behooves scholars of public health to explore how US medical contraceptive care was successfully established and perpetuated initially in the early to mid-twentieth century. This article highlights the work of Hannah Mayer Stone, MD, in building and advocating such care. From the moment she accepted the position of medical director for the first contraceptive clinic in the country in 1925 until her untimely death in 1941, Stone campaigned relentlessly for women's access to the best contraceptive regimes available, all the while navigating extensive legal, social, and scientific challenges. In 1928, she published the first scientific report on contraception in a US medical journal, thereby legitimating the provision of contraception as a medical endeavor and providing empirical grounds for clinical contraceptive work in the years that followed. Her scientific publications and professional correspondence provide insight into the processes through which medical contraceptive care became increasingly available in US history and offer guidance for a contemporary era when reproductive health care hangs in the balance. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(4):390–396. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307215) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented in which the author discusses the management of the reporting of death data in New York City (NYC) amid the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. The article examines the significance of death registration and analysis in public health, the NYC electronic death registration system known as eVital, and the importance of mortality data in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background. Since 2005, most US states have expanded civilian rights to use deadly force in self-defense outside the home. In most cases, legislation has included removing the duty to retreat anywhere one may legally be, commonly known as stand-your-ground laws. The extent to which these laws affect public health and safety is widely debated in public and policy discourse. Objectives. To synthesize the available evidence on the impacts and social inequities associated with changing civilian rights to use deadly force in self-defense on violence, injury, crime, and firearm-related outcomes. Search Methods. We searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, Sociological Abstracts, National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts, Education Resources Information Center, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Google Scholar, National Bureau of Economic Research working papers, and SocArXiv; harvested references of included studies; and consulted with experts to identify studies until April 2020. Selection Criteria. Eligible studies quantitatively estimated the association between laws that expanded or restricted the right to use deadly force in self-defense and population or subgroup outcomes among civilians with a comparator. Data Collection and Analysis. Two reviewers extracted study data using a common form. We assessed study quality using the Risk of Bias in Nonrandomized Studies of Interventions tools adapted for (controlled) before–after studies. To account for data dependencies, we conducted graphical syntheses (forest plots and harvest plots) to summarize the evidence on impacts and inequities associated with changing self-defense laws. Main Results. We identified 25 studies that estimated population-level impacts of laws expanding civilian rights to use deadly force in self-defense, all of which focused on stand-your-ground or other expansions to self-defense laws in the United States. Studies were scored as having serious or critical risk of bias attributable to confounding. Risk of bias was low across most other domains (i.e., selection, missing data, outcome, and reporting biases). Stand-your-ground laws were associated with no change to small increases in violent crime (total and firearm homicide, aggravated assault, robbery) on average across states. Florida-based studies showed robust increases (24% to 45%) in firearm and total homicide while self-defense claims under stand-your-ground law were more often denied when victims were White, especially when claimants were racial minorities. Author's Conclusions. The existing evidence contradicts claims that expanding self-defense laws deters violent crime across the United States. In at least some contexts, including Florida, stand-your-ground laws are associated with increases in violence, and there are racial inequities in the application of these laws. Public Health Implications. In some US states, most notably Florida, stand-your-ground laws may have harmed public health and safety and exacerbated social inequities. Our findings highlight the need for scientific evidence on both population and equity impacts of self-defense laws to guide legislative action that promotes public health and safety for all. Trial Registration. Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/uz68e). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. An earlier paper estimated the per-case and national incidence costs of Alzheimer's disease for 1983. This paper updates the estimates of costs per case to 1991 and presents new national prevalence estimates of the economic and social costs of the disease. Methods. All data for the cost estimates were taken from published sources or provided by other researchers. Results. At midrange values of the estimated cost and epidemiological parameters, the discounted (at 4%) direct and total costs of Alzheimer's disease were $47 581 and $173 932 per case, respectively. The estimated 1991 national direct and total prevalence costs were $20.6 billion and $67.3 billion, respectively. Assuming conservatively that the prevalence of the disease remains constant, the estimated discounted present values of the direct and total costs of all current and future generations of Alzheimer's patients are $536 billion and $1.75 trillion, respectively. Conclusions. The $536 billion and $1.75 trillion figures are minimum estimates of the long-term dollar losses to the US economy in 1991 caused by Alzheimer's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the proposal of separating authorship responsibility and authorship credit for biomedical journals. He cites the difficulty and strictness of the criteria for authorship implemented by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. He stated that separating the conflict between authors' desire for credit and journals' desire for responsibility is the first step to be taken toward a solution.

The article focuses on the conflict between the public health sector and the tobacco industry in the U.S. According to the author, the said conflict can be likened to David and Goliath, with the tobacco industry portraying Goliath. The tobacco industry has launched a personal attack upon the credibility and integrity of Stanton Glantz, who wrote several papers against the smoking and the tobacco industry, in general. A letter was sent by Thomas Humber, president of the National Smokers Alliance, to the author criticizing a paper written by Glantz on the effect of smoke-free restaurant ordinances on restaurant sales.

Abstract: In Nagoya City, Japan. VMA mass screening for detection of neuroblastoma has been performed since 1977. Filter paper strips wetted with urine are mailed to a central laboratory. Positive tests are followed up by more definitive testing. Of the 20,053 urine samples of 6-month-old infants tested. January 1977 to March 1983, live asymptomatic infants with neuroblastoma have been discovered. All have been treated and are alive as of January 1984. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the report concerning the "American Journal of Public Health" in the U.S. The report includes the manuscripts that were received by the Journal. The author mentions the publications of more papers that focus on the environmental and occupational health, as well as the desire to publish papers about maternal and child health. It is also asserted in the report that the rejection of around 80% of the submissions as stated in the publication standards and space limitations should not discourage the contributors to the Journal.

Objectives. To determine the association between e-cigarette use and smoking cessation. Methods. We searched PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, and EMBASE and computed the association of e-cigarette use with quitting cigarettes using random effects meta-analyses. Results. We identified 64 papers (55 observational studies and 9 randomized clinical trials [RCTs]). In observational studies of all adult smokers (odds ratio [OR] = 0.947; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.772, 1.160) and smokers motivated to quit smoking (OR = 0.851; 95% CI = 0.684, 1.057), e-cigarette consumer product use was not associated with quitting. Daily e-cigarette use was associated with more quitting (OR = 1.529; 95% CI = 1.158, 2.019) and less-than-daily use was associated with less quitting (OR = 0.514; 95% CI = 0.402, 0.665). The RCTs that compared quitting among smokers who were provided e-cigarettes to smokers with conventional therapy found e-cigarette use was associated with more quitting (relative risk = 1.555; 95% CI = 1.173, 2.061). Conclusions. As consumer products, in observational studies, e-cigarettes were not associated with increased smoking cessation in the adult population. In RCTs, provision of free e-cigarettes as a therapeutic intervention was associated with increased smoking cessation. Public Health Implications. E-cigarettes should not be approved as consumer products but may warrant consideration as a prescription therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) have become a widely embraced policy to address the US opioid crisis. Despite mixed scientific evidence on their effectiveness at improving health and reducing overdose deaths, 49 states and Washington, DC have adopted PDMPs, and they have received strong bipartisan legislative support. This article explores the history of PDMPs, tracking their evolution from paper-based administrative databases in the early 1900s to modern-day electronic systems that intervene at the point of care. We focus on two questions: how did PDMPs become so widely adopted in the United States, and how did they gain popularity as an intervention in the contemporary opioid crisis? Through this historical approach, we evaluate what PDMPs reflect about national drug policy and broader cultural understandings of substance use disorder in the United States today. (Am J Public Health. 2020;110:1191–1197. 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305696) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. We conducted 2 studies to determine the impact of text message immunization reminder-recalls in an urban, low-income population. Methods. In 1 study, text message immunization reminders were sent to a random sample of parents (n=195) whose children aged 11 to 18 years needed either or both meningococcal (MCV4) and tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) immunizations. We compared receipt of MCV4 or Tdap at 4, 12, and 24 weeks with age- and gender-matched controls. In the other study, we compared attendance at a postshortage Haemophilus influenzae B (Hib) immunization recall session between parents who received text message and paper-mailed reminders (n=87) and those who only received paper-mailed reminders (n=87). Results. Significantly more adolescents with intervention parents received either or both MCV4 and Tdap at weeks 4 (15.4% vs 4.2%; P<.001), 12 (26.7% vs 13.9%; P<.005), and 24 (36.4% vs 18.1%; P<.001). Significantly more parents who received both Hib reminders attended a recall session compared with parents who only received a mailed reminder (21.8% vs 9.2%; P<.05). After controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, insurance status, and language, text messaging was still significantly associated with both studies' outcomes. Conclusions. Text messaging for reminder-recalls improved immunization coverage in a low-income, urban population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. We examined whether automated electronic laboratory reporting of notifiable-diseases results in information being delivered to public health departments more completely and quickly than is the case with spontaneous, paper-based reporting. Methods. We used data from a local public health department, hospital infection control departments, and a community-wide health information exchange to identify all potential cases of notifiable conditions that occurred in Marion County, Ind, during the first quarter of 2001. We compared traditional spontaneous reporting to the health department with automated electronic laboratory reporting through the health information exchange. Results. After reports obtained using the 2 methods had been matched, there were 4785 unique reports for 53 different conditions during the study period. Chlamydia was the most common condition, followed by hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and gonorrhea. Automated electronic laboratory reporting identified 4.4 times as many cases as traditional spontaneous, paper-based methods and identified those cases 7.9 days earlier than spontaneous reporting. Conclusions. Automated electronic laboratory reporting improves the completeness and timeliness of disease surveillance, which will enhance public health awareness and reporting efficiency. (Am J Public Health. 2008;98:344-350. doi:10.2105/AJPH. 2006.092700) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the epidemiological imagination, the Framingham Heart Study has attained iconic status, both as the prototype of the cohort study and as a result of its scientific success.When the Public Health Service launched the study in 1947, epidemiological knowledge of coronary heart disease was poor, and epidemiology primarily involved the study of infectious disease. In constructing their investigation, Framingham's initiators had to invent new approaches to epidemiological research. These scientific goals were heavily influenced by the contending institutional and personal interests buffeting the study.The study passed through vicissitudes and stages during its earliest years as its organizers grappled to define its relationship to medicine, epidemiology, and the local community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the epidemiological imagination, the Framingham Heart Study has attained iconic status, both as the prototype of the cohort study and as a result of its scientific success. When the Public Health Service launched the study in 1947, epidemiological knowledge of coronary heart disease was poor, and epidemiology primarily involved the study of infectious disease. In constructing their investigation, Framingham's initiators had to invent new approaches to epidemiological research. These scientific goals were heavily influenced by the contending institutional and personal interests buffeting the study. The study passed through vicissitudes and stages during its earliest years as its organizers grappled to define its relationship to medicine, epidemiology, and the local community. (Am J Public Health. 2005;95:602-610.doi10.2105/AJPH.2003.026419). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major source of childhood lead poisoning, still a serious problem in the United States, is paint. The dangers of lead were known even in the 19th century, and the particular dangers to children were documented in the English-language literature as early as 1904. During the first decades of the 20th century, many other countries banned or restricted the use of lead paint for interior painting. Despite this knowledge, the lead industry in the United States did nothing to discourage the use of lead paint on interior walls and woodwork. In fact, beginning in the 1920s, the Lead Industries Association and its members conducted an intensive campaign to promote the use of paint containing white lead, even targeting children in their advertising. It was not until the 1950s that the industry, under increasing pressure, adopted a voluntary standard limiting the amount of lead in interior paints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major source of childhood lead poisoning, still a serious problem in the United States, is paint. The dangers of lead were known even in the 19th century, and the particular dangers to children were documented in the English-language literature as early as 1904. During the first decades of the 20th century, many other countries banned or restricted the use of lead paint for interior painting. Despite this knowledge, the lead industry in the United States did nothing to discourage the use of lead paint on interior walls and woodwork. In fact, beginning in the 1920s, the Lead Industries Association and its members conducted an intensive campaign to promote the use of paint containing white lead, even targeting children in their advertising. It was not until the 1950s that the industry, under increasing pressure, adopted a voluntary standard limiting the amount of lead in interior paints. (Am J Public Health. 2000;90:36-46) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list of books related to medical care including the "Understanding Childhood Obesity," by J. Clinton Smith, is presented.

The article reports on the announcement of Vision Care Section of the American Public Health Association in the U.S. of its awards program for 1987. The association solicits nominations in the three categories of awards including distinguished achievement, outstanding student and outstanding paper or project. The distinguished achievement award is the highest honor bestowed by the Vision Care Section, designed to recognize the leaders in vision care and public health. The outstanding student award provides recognition to a student who has demonstrated the ability in the promotion of vision care in the public health field. The paper or project award is designed to recognize an individual, institution, or group that have significantly contributed to the advancement of vision care.

The authors reflect on the process of mentoring for publication in the "American Journal of Public Health (AJPH)." Topics include the challenges of publishing a first-authored, peer-reviewed journal articles in the field of public health research, the role of mentorship in guiding mentees through the peer-review process and teaching them how to assess and surmount rejection, and the inauguration of the "AJPH" Early Career Trainee Paper of the Year Award.

The authors discusses, with the help of two research papers, the nutritional status of the aged in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. Both studies offer convincing evidence of diminished purchasing power specially among the elderly. High prices for basic items such as food and medicines, as well as increasing difficulties in maintaining an adequate social welfare system, have raised fears that large numbers of economically vulnerable citizens, including elderly pensioners, will fall through the social safety net. There is a clear need to establish routine systems of monitoring trends in food security that include economic indicators as well as dietary intake and anthropometric data.

The article talks about the significance of examining statistical problems in papers submitted to the "American Journal of Public Health." The journal guides its authors with respect to its preferences in statistical matters and it adheres to statistical standards. The journal's perspective on statistical presentations evolves continuously. Statistics concerning public health are always considered by the journal.

Objectives. Every year about 38 000 elderly people with diabetes have a lower extremity amputation. Therapeutic shoes are prescribed by clinicians specializing in foot care to prevent foot ulcerations and amputations among at-risk patients with diabetes. Medicare ran a 3-year demonstration of a therapeutic-shoe benefit for beneficiaries with diabetes. Medicare added the benefit nationwide in May 1993. Methods. This paper describes the benefit and its implementation in the demonstration based on demonstration records, a patient survey, and discussions with clinicians and shoe suppliers before and during the demonstration. Results. During the demonstration, far fewer beneficiaries applied for the therapeutic shoes than were eligible for them. The paper discusses reasons for the low beneficiary application rate and the associated low participation rate among physicians treating patients with diabetes. Conclusions. The benefit is unlikely to be used any more in the national program than in the demonstration unless physicians are educated in the role therapeutic shoes can play in diabetic foot disease, they prescribe the shoes for their patients, and they increase their patients' awareness of the shoes' value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part I of this paper traced the evolution of modern epidemiology in terms of three eras, each with its dominant paradigm, culminating in the present era of chronic disease epidemiology with its paradigm, the black box. This paper sees the close of the present era and foresees a new era of eco-epidemioiogy in which the deployment of a different paradigm will be crucial. Here a paradigm is advocated for the emergent era. Encompassing many levels of organization-molecular and societal as well as individual-this paradigm, termed Chinese boxes, aims to integrate more than a single level in design, analysis, and interpretation. Such a paradigm could sustain and refine a public health-oriented epidemiology. But preventing a decline of creative epidemiology in this new era will require more than a cogent scientific paradigm. Attention will have to be paid to the social processes that foster a cohesive and humane discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1930s threshold limit values have been presented as an objectively established measure of US industrial safety. However, there have been important questions raised regarding the adequacy of these thresholds for protecting workers from silicosis. This paper explores the historical debates over silica threshold limit values and the intense political negotiation that accompanied their establishment. In the 1930s and early 1940s, a coalition of business, public health, insurance, and political interests formed in response to a widely perceived "silicosis crisis." Part of the resulting program aimed at containing the crisis was the establishment of threshold limit values. Yet silicosis eases continued to be documented. By the 1960s these cases had become the basis for a number of revisions to the thresholds. In the 1970s, following a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommendation to lower the threshold limit value for silica and to eliminate sand as an abrasive in blasting, industry fought attempts to make the existing values more stringent. This paper traces the process by which threshold limit values became part of a compromise between the health of workers and the economic interests of industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. There has been a lack of reliable national data on the number of pregnant women using drugs and the number of newborns affected by such use. The major reasons for this lack have been inadequate sampling and data collection procedures and the lack of a risk assessment perspective in analysis. This paper corrects for these inadequacies. Methods. Data from 1979 through 1990 from the National Hospital Discharge Survey, an annual survey by the National Center for Health Statistics, were analyzed. Results. Between 1979 and 1990 there was a 576% increase in the rate of discharges of drug-using parturient women in the United States and a 456% increase in the rate of discharges of drug-affected newborns. After adjustment for underreporting, a "best estimate" of the number of discharges from 1988 through 1990 was about 88 000 per year for drug-using parturient women and about 48 000 per year for drug-affected newborns. Conclusions. Although the data support the occurrence of a national epidemic of drug use among pregnant women during the 1980s, the size and severity of this epidemic have been overstated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the position paper 9212: The Health of Refugees and Displaced Persons: A Public Health Priority adopted by the American Public Health Association (APHA). The problems associated refugees and displaced persons are discussed. Special needs of women and children, repatriations and financial resources for refugees and displaced persons are tackled. The goal of the paper is to increase support for fundamental, structural changes in the international humanitarian assistance system for refugees, displaced persons and returnees.

The article discusses the position paper 9211: Domestic Violence adopted by the American Public Health Association. The paper aims to mobilize public health professionals and public health agencies to engage in actions regarding the prevention of domestic violence. It defines domestic violence as an act that leads to physical, emotional and other injury to anther individual. The acts include physical, sexual, emotional abuse, incest and neglect. The scope of the problem for spouse/cohabiting partner abuse, child abuse and elder abuse is discussed. Proposed actions such as prevention and education, legal/judicial reform and service delivery are also tackled.

Abstract: A system is presented for linking information about psychosocial characteristics of job situations to national health surveys. Job information can be imputed to individuals on surveys that contain three-digit US Census occupation codes. Occupational mean scores on psychosocial job characteristics--control over task situation (decision latitude), psychological work load, physical exertion, and other measures--for the linkage system are derived from US national surveys of working conditions (Quality of Employment Surveys 1969, 1972, and 1977). This paper discusses a new method for reducing the biases in multivariate analyses that are likely to arise when utilizing linkage systems based on mean scores. Such biases are reduced by modifying the linkage system to adjust imputed individual scores for demographic factors such as age, education, race, marital status and, implicitly, sex (since men and women have separate linkage data bases). Statistics on the linkage system's efficiency and reliability are reported. All dimensions have high inter-survey reproducibility. Despite their psychosocial nature, decision latitude and physical exertion can be more efficiently imputed with the linkage system than earnings (a non-psychosocial job characteristic). The linkage system presented here is a useful tool for initial epidemiological studies of the consequences of psychosocial job characteristics and constitutes the methodological basis for the subsequent paper. (Am J Public Health 1988; 78:904-909.) INSET: NCHSR's Hospital Studies Program Using New Data Base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Records of hospital inpatients were abstracted for 5,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients admitted in 1982-83 to 17 Comprehensive Cancer Centers and 17 Community Hospital Oncology Programs. Generally available data items (silent record rate less than 5 per cent for the typical institution) included: age, race, sex, dates of hospitalization, zip code of residence, pathological stage, dates of biopsy and surgery, numbers of nodes examined and positive, certain diagnostic procedures, and some radiotherapy descriptors. For other data items, there was enormous variability in completeness and high institution-to-institution variation. Record completeness did not differ consistently between comprehensive and community cancer centers. We conclude that the hospital patient record is useful for tracking the frequency of surgical and related events. However, studies of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures should not rely solely on the hospital medical record due to the high rates of silent records. INSET: Medical Literature at Risk of Deterioration from Acid in Paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of state trends in infant mortality rates (IMRs) for 1968–83. In order to take into account the large random error component associated with state IMRs, weighted least squares estimates are used to fit log-linear models to these trends. Using simulated data, these estimates are shown to be nearly unbiased and to provide valid significance tests. However, the power to detect changes in trend is rather limited, especially in small states. Using these methods, separate analyses of White IMRs in 49 states and non-White IMRs in 30 states were completed. Nine states are identified which had infant mortality trends less favorable than the national experience and 1981-83 rates more than 5 per cent above the national average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes the relationships of selected dimensions of nurse-client interaction in county health department family planning clinics to the subsequent contraceptive use of the clinic's unmarried teenage clients. The subjects for the study are the clients and professional staff of 78 clinics: 2.900 eligible clients making their first contraceptive visit and 338 clinic staff nurses. Results of interviews demonstrate that client and staff expectations and interactions are significant predictors of adherence to a contraceptive regimen: under circumstances where clients anticipate, and staff employ, authoritative guidance in helping the clients to select a contraceptive method, clinic mean levels of contraceptive use are substantially increased. Overall, 40 per ¢ of clinic variation in contraceptive compliance is explained by the interaction dimensions and other aspects of clinic organization addressed in this paper. Implications of these results for the structuring of family planning clinic programs directed toward teenage women are briefly considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluative studies of outcomes of traditional school health education programs have shown that they are very effective in increasing knowledge, somewhat effective in improving attitudes, and, with a few notable exceptions, generally ineffective in changing health practices. This paper discusses the previous reviews of the literature of outcomes of school health education programs, and discusses the constraints inherent in school-based activities: an emphasis on cognitive learning, lecture-oriented teaching methods, inadequate pupil assessment procedures, a captive audience, competing subject areas, competing behavioral influences, behavior change attempts directed at ingrained health habits, inadequate coordination with community resources, and lack of consensus regarding educational goals. The paper then examines several recent successful school health education programs emphasizing non-traditional approaches in self-initiated care, pregnancy prevention, smoking prevention, and nutrition. It is concluded that school-based health education programs have three important roles in community health promotion: 1) the provision of a fundamental understanding of health and disease concepts to large segments of the population; 2) the reinforcement of positive health attitudes; and 3) the alteration of concurrent health behaviors for significant health problems. Although school health education may be helpful in enhancing decision-making and social interaction skills, little empirical evidence exists at this time to support this conclusion. (Am J Public Health 1981; 71:1384-1391.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how the "American Journal of Public Health," the official organ of the American Public Health Association cope with the changes in the health policy in the U.S. During the period of editorship of Dr. George Rosen, both the Journal's circulation and its sponsoring organization's membership has doubled. The source of offerings to the Journal expanded far beyond the lists of Association members and the papers presented at public health meetings during the years of Rosen's editorship.

This paper describes a pilot case-finding survey which allowed statistical resolution of a number of methodological issues facing researchers who conduct such surveys. The pilot study for a national survey assessing the incidence, prevalence, and economic impact of head and spinal cord injuries, was conducted in eight geographically representative country sites and involved a study of field procedures in several different types of medical facilities. The scope of this paper is limited to the study of procedures used in hospitals. It concluded that: (1) inexperienced field staff were as productive as experienced field staff for activities such as listing discharges and abstracting patient records; (2) field staff familiarity with facility record systems was associated with success in securing hospital cooperation; (3) endorsements by national chapters of relevant professional arid health-related associations were sufficient for securing hospital cooperation; and (4) neither hospital characteristics (e.g., size) nor the degree of participation by cooperating hospitals was associated with any significant differences in field staff productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to trace the development of the Neighborhood Health Center Program supported under section 314(e) of the Public Health Service Act, as amended, and to extract from this project grant experience some implications for the best future use of federal health services project grant funds. These implications were drawn in the context of emerging federal and private sector initiatives in the areas of financing, organization, and delivery of health services, such as health maintenance organizations and national health insurance. Although the paper was presented 2 years ago, the authors feel the conclusions in the paper remain germane today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commenting on an earlier paper in this Journal (January, 1971) which discusses ‘demand’ and ‘need’ for medical services, the authors present another framework for analysis. A rejoinder by the authors of the original paper follows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health planning in this paper is considered as a developmental process in which different types of planning appear at different times. These types are discussed and the place in the complex health care system developing in the United States is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information about the evolution of the "American Journal of Public Health." It is stated that the establishment of the journal has been decided by the American Public Health Association at their meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1910. It has been emphasized that the journal is not the first journal in the country that is dedicated to public health because, before its publication, there has been already an existing public health journal tilted "The Sanitarian." Making "The Sanitarian" as the basis for the organization's publication, they have started publishing their proceedings including papers and reports presented at their meetings. Other information regarding the journal's development is discussed.

A list of books in various topics is presented, including "Fluoridation Bibliography: Referendums, Public Participation in Decision-Making, and Methodologies for Attitude Perception Studies," by Bruce Mitchell, "Health Systems and Health Planning in International Perspective," and "Hygiene and Food Production," edited by Arnold Fox.

Predictions that measles would be eradicated through vaccination have not been fulfilled. The reasons for this failure are analyzed in this paper, and the possibilities for successful action against measles are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]