Scholars and practitioners who are aware of the history of Health Care for Women International know Carole Anne McKenzie founded “Health Care for Women.” I believe she employed the journal to elevate the prestige of midwives and others in obstetrical nursing, given her practice concerns and a primary interest in maternal and neonatal health.
The next editor, Phyllis Noerager Stern, also desired to elevate the status of women's health practitioners, founding the International Council on Women's Health Issues (ICOWHI), uniting international practitioners with scholars to improve the health of women and girls, globally. She added the word “international” to the name of the journal, and continued to foster evidence-based practice manuscripts, while she also strove to broaden the scope of the journal by encouraging authors to submit grounded theoretical work. She abhorred violence against women, recognizing it as an international health issue shared by scholars and practitioners in the ICOWHI.
I am among the small group who helped build the ICOWHI, and I am the editor who came next. I am a social science scholar with credentials in medical sociology and gerontology. I believe improving the health of women and girls necessitates studying the entire life course and wedding the scholarship of practitioners with that of those rooted in public health disciplines. I want to elevate the status of patients—not just the status of practitioners—particularly because the voices of the former have sometimes been stifled by the latter group. I, too, want to broaden the scope of our journal and I prefer work where it is evident that practitioners and patients have collaborated. I require all authors to explain how they have protected the rights of research participants. All authors must also begin and end their work by addressing an international, interdisciplinary audience. They must explain the relevance to others of their methodological, theoretical, and practice contributions to the scientific literature on women's health.
In this particular issue of the journal, I include a collection of work to honor our maternal/neonatal roots, showing off the breadth of current scholarship. I expect readers to recognize the authors’ contributions. Lest some fear I am abandoning my life course perspective, rest assured that other issues will not be limited to reproductive health.
March 30, 2016