The year 2019 brings with it opportunities and challenges for the International Journal of Mental Health (IJMH). This year, an emerging focus of the IJMH related to a global opportunity is smart (digital interactive) mental health services. As part of that, we have introduced a new section of the IJMH, titled Mental Health Informatics, which addresses smart mental health services as well as big data, machine and deep learning, the Internet of things, and more, in relation to mental health. Also, most of our book reviews this year will be dedicated to smart mental health services. Another opportunity involves global mental health, which is a rapidly growing area of scholarly interest and practical importance. As part of that, we expect to publish this year a theme issue on training in relation to global mental health. More generally, the IJMH continues to address mental health in low and middle income countries and other aspects of mental health that involve matters of social justice as well as additional topics of merit.
The IJMH has recently faced some technical challenges, particularly some production difficulties. This has delayed the publication of the fourth issue of its 2018 volume so that it was published early this year rather than late last year; I apologize for this to the IJMH’s subscribers and other readers as well as to that issue’s authors. I am working with the IJMH’s staff to try to prevent the reoccurrence of such a delay, recognizing that the IJMH is not the only academic journal that has been troubled this way lately. Another challenge is the unavailability of many peer reviewers across the world, which seems to be a worsening problem. Again, this is reportedly not unique to the IJMH, but nevertheless it causes delays in editorial decision making and thus makes it more difficult for authors to improve and disseminate their work. I use this opportunity to call upon the mental health academic community at large to be as available as possible for peer reviews, for the sake of the general public who benefits from publications in venues such as the IJMH as well as from a collegial standpoint.
Last but not least, I would like to use this opportunity to thank the IJMH’s previous Associate Editor of Submissions Karen Rothman and its new (and already experienced) Associate Editor of Submissions Yael Mazor. Their tireless work for the IJMH has been invaluable and should be recognized as such. I look forward to another year of interesting and important work with everyone who is involved with the IJMH.