Editorial Welcome.
It is a great honour to begin our tenure as Editors of Psychology & Health, a flagship journal of the European Health Psychology Society. Beginning January 2020, we have the challenging task of following in the footsteps of the exceptional outgoing Editors, Mark Conner and Daryl O’Connor. We thank Mark and Daryl for their significant efforts, dedication, and commitment to the journal, and through a strong editorial team building the reputation of Psychology & Health toward being one of the most respected international journals in health psychology and behavioural medicine.
The continued success of Psychology & Health is due to the efforts of our predecessors and the internationally diverse team of Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, contributors, and supporting staff. We thank them for their longstanding service and for assisting in making Psychology & Health a leading outlet for quality research. We hope to maintain this momentum while keeping pace with the challenging and changing nature of scholarly journal publishing, including the prolific growth of published research in recent years, the responses to published research both within and outside the scientific community thanks to social media, and the movement toward open science practices and improved research transparency. We embrace these challenging and changing times with excitement although also with some trepidation, but feel we can meet these challenges with a clear focus on remaining committed to publishing high quality research through a rigorous and fair peer review process. This process will rely on the indispensable contribution of the reviewers, guest editors, and our fresh editorial team to whom we are greatly indebted.
We recognize the diversity in approaches to answering research questions and we want to continue the tradition established by previous editorial teams of looking at health psychology through a wide and varied lens while staying true to the aims and scope of the journal. This includes considering submissions on psychological aspects of physical illness, treatment processes and recovery; pychosocial factors in the aetiology of physical illnesses; health attitudes and behaviour, including prevention; the individual-health care system interface particularly communication; and psychologically-based interventions. The journal publishes original research on a diverse range of methods and approaches including quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and meta-analytic research. But we also consider submissions outlining new and novel theoretical developments, psychological approaches, and interventions in health-related fields. The editorship also comes with an obligation and commitment to publish research that reflects clear expression of scientific discourse, empirical advancement and methodological rigor, innovation and creativity, and progressive theoretical advancements, all underpinned by an overarching principle of focusing less on research findings and focusing more on high quality science.
Given the leading established statue of Psychology & Health in the field, we do not propose any radical changes under our leadership; however, we recognize that the journal needs to adapt to embrace the rapidly changing world of publication and information dissemination. With this in mind, we outline five key goals to help grow the journal and increase its prominence both in Europe and internationally:
Goal 1: Maintain the establishment of the journal as a primary choice for health psychology researchers wanting to disseminate their research findings on a par with other leading journals in the field of health psychology and behavioural medicine.
Goal 2: Increase the number of high-quality, diverse submissions to the journal, particularly in key niche areas such as theory integration, translation and implementation science, and replication methods, and extend the readership and impact of articles published in the journal.
Goal 3: Improve the international diversity of submissions to the journal and the international visibility of submissions as well as ensure the editorial team reflects this diversity.
Goal 4: Make Psychology & Health as a forum for high-level academic debate on key issues and ‘hot topics’ in the area.
Goal 5: Encourage all authors of empirical studies to make their data, data analysis scripts, and study materials available for review and submitted on an open access platform (e.g., Open Science Framework) after publication.
We are extremely excited to begin this journey and relish the opportunity to make a contribution to the development of Psychology & Health. We have assembled a dynamic, visionary, and truly international team of Associate Editors and Editorial Board members who have strong, diverse backgrounds in the study and application of psychological approaches to health and illness, and we feel very fortunate to be sharing this journey with them. We also feel very fortunate to be supported by the team at Taylor & Francis, who ensure we are at the forefront of new and creative developments in the publishing domain. As a team, we look forward to fulfilling our goals and obligations and taking Psychology & Health to the next level and become the go-to journal for authors of the highest quality research in health psychology and behavioural medicine.
Yours sincerely,
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