Advancing LGBTQ+ mental health

Reflecting on my involvement with JGLMH over the past decade or more, it is gratifying to see how the journal, one of the few journals devoted to LGBTQ+ Mental Health, has grown in that time. In 2013, articles in the journal were downloaded from Taylor and Francis Online or EBSCO 25,109 times. In 2023 downloads had quadrupled to 103,919. From 2017 to 2023 submissions to the journal tripled from 38 to 103 per year. This enabled us to improve our acceptance rate, which went from 60% in 2017 to 25% in 2023. Our submissions have also become more international over this time, as readers will have seen reflected in these pages. Our impact in terms of citations has also increased substantially over this time, with the SCOPUS CiteScore metric (average number of citations in four years/number of papers published in four years) increasing from 0.9 in 2014 to 4.2 in 2022. As well, the journal is now indexed on the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) which will allow us going forward to measure our citation impact with a formal Impact Factor.

Going over these numbers leaves me reassured that the journal is in a good place as I pass the torch to a new Editor-in-Chief at the end of this publication year. Dr. Mark Bradley, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, where he is also Program Director for the Consultation-Liaison Fellowship Program, will be the new EIC starting with Volume 29. For this year’s volume, Dr. Bradley is named Deputy Editor as part of the transition plan. We have already had many fruitful discussions about the exciting future of JGLMH, and more will be had both internally, and with the journal’s Editorial Board, and with the board and membership of the sponsoring society AGLP: The Association of LGBTQ+ Psychiatrists over the coming year. If you have views about the future direction of JGLMH, please be in touch with us at [email protected].

Christopher A. McIntosh, MSc, MD, FRCPC, DFAPA
Editor-in-chief
[email protected]

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