EDITORIAL

A happy and creative new year for Cadernos de Saúde Pública

Marilia Sá Carvalho; Claudia Travassos; Cláudia Medina Coeli

The Editors

This issue of Cadernos de Saúde Pública (CSP) ushers in some innovations that were discussed during a meeting of the Editorial Board on November 13, 2012. The central theme of the discussion was the journal's role in the academic growth of the Public Health field. The discussion included internal management issues, the redefinition of some sections, translation into other languages, the relationship with the SciELO database, and the Associate Editors' role.

The first change, which will already be implemented in the coming issue, is the creation of the Perspectives section. As in other academic journals around the world, our goal with this section is to include a discussion of contemporary issues affecting the field's development. Such issues range from global health to health-related legislation, from the development of the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) to the challenges facing science in Brazil and in the world as a whole.

Other new ideas, which we intend to implement gradually over the course of 2013, also focus on the necessary continuous updating of the journal. The reformulation of the old Methods Section, now known as Methodological Questions, aims to foster an in-depth debate on methodological alternatives, whether quantitative or qualitative. The space granted to this discussion in scientific journals is at times limited, since the questions raised by such articles often stand on the borders between disciplines. These articles should present and discuss innovative methods applied to key research questions in Public Health. Articles on validation and reproducibility, though important, will not be included in this section. Instead, they will continue to be published as original articles or as Brief Communications, a reformulation of the Research Notes section with a somewhat expanded scope.

At this time, we have chosen to expand the journal's outreach to readers whose native language is Spanish, currently the second or third most widely spoken mother tongue in the world. The number of article submissions in Spanish has increased, especially from Latin American authors, reflecting our intended reach in South-South cooperation. Thus, all abstracts will now be published in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. We will attempt to ensure this priority without burdening the authors, despite the unavoidable increase in translation and revision costs.

We wish to publicly express our thanks to the Associate Editors for their generous dedication. The group's academic vitality, expressed in its creative thinking in relation to the journal itself, provides the basis for the changes presented in this editorial.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 Dec 2012
• Date of issue
  Dec 2012