Welcoming the e-age: the e-age has finally caught up with our Journal
On behalf of the editorial team
E-mail: evelyne.deleeuw{at}deakin.edu.au
About half a billion (500,000,000,000!) websites in English and French alone deal with health matters, from the totally obscure through engaged consumer websites, telemedicine and e-health, to prestigious on-line sources such as e-journals and national health research council protocols and guidelines. The field of health promotion has been an enthusiastic contributor to this wild and anarchistic proliferation of information on virtually any aspect of human health.
Systematic reviews of the good, the bad and the ugly in internet health promotion have started to emerge and present us with interesting new insights. However, there are no relevant Cochrane reviews or protocols in the pipeline at this moment. The absence of conclusive evidence to the question whether the internet has health promotion capacities can be attributed to this very anarchistic nature of the presence of health matters on the world wide web. Internet-based tailored behaviour change programmes have been suggested to be effective (Kroeze et al., 2006
), but whether they are more effective than other programmes remains to be seen. Korp (Korp, 2006) even cautions that internet health promotion may well widen the health inequity gap, and that certain types of health information may in fact be disempowering to individuals and communities.
When looking at the evidence that the internet may contribute to health or not, a fascinating perspective is that most websites that deal with health issues are individualist, behaviourist and reductionist in their outlook. This seems to be a leap back in time, to a pre-Ottawa Charter era. Given that publication of the final report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health is imminent, it comes as a shock to recognize that broader, environmental and ‘upstream’ determinants of health are rarely part of the internet health promotion discourse.
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) is working hard on the development of health informatics standards and protocols in its TC215 Technical Committee. However, none of the 48 standards published so far relates to guidelines for the generation and delivery of validated, theory-driven and evidence-based, equitable and up-to-date information that falls within culturally and linguistically appropriate communication parameters.
The stakes are high for the health promotion field to engage in and take hold of this agenda. If the World Health Organisation, the International Union for Health Promotion and Education and their national and local counterparts and stakeholders are to be future-proof and continue to use the communication modalities that will be available to us all, it is imperative that they start to contribute to ISO's work now.
Health Promotion International should also contribute to this debate. Most of our readers will be aware that through the Oxford University Press website (http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/) the impressive array of articles that we have published over the last 23 years can be searched and browsed. No longer bound to just print versions, we can publish articles on-line within days of them being accepted. Where we might have thought that this information functionality supported the development of health promotion science, policy and practice to unknown heights, the IT engineers cannot sit still. Images from articles in the journal can now with a simple click be transformed into e-presentation materials ready for lectures or policy briefings.
The Editorial Office has also made perhaps a small step for the health promotion community, but a giant leap for our capacity to deal with the ever increasing stream of interesting manuscripts that are being offered for review and publication. The manuscript submission, assessment, review, edit and production process is being transformed into a wholly on-line operation, in which we are as always greatly supported by OUP staff. The potential advantages of the Manuscript Central software that we are using are, among others, the combination between faster turn-around times for assessment and reviews, and increased capacity to monitor the quality of submissions. Within the system, we can quickly and reliably assess how original and innovative manuscripts are, and to which reviewers they can be best assigned.
Our imagination should be limitless when thinking about further enhancements to our operations that the electronic world might bring. Publications on the Journal's website would, for instance, enable authors to present dynamic modeling within their on-line presence; audiovisual materials illustrating interventions could be made available. ‘New’ types of diagnostics using new technologies (Photovoice, interactive web projects) could simply be shown in action, rather than having to rely on tedious descriptions.
And after running the administrative side of the journal for a period spanning two decades, Lucinda Catford has handed the baton from paper-based to electronic office work to a new editorial assistant, Robyn Perlstein. While welcoming Robyn to the world of Health Promotion International, we must acknowledge that the journal would not be considered a world standard in our field, without the persistence, diligence, accuracy and friendly efficiency of Lucinda. We are certain we write on behalf of all authors and reviewers stating we owe a great debt of gratitude to you, but are certain that your ‘HPI hours’ will now be filled in much better ways.
References
Korp P. Health on the Internet: implications for health promotion. Health Education Research (2006) 21:78–86.
Kroeze W., Werkman A, Brug J. a systematic review of randomized trials on the effectiveness of computer-tailored education on physical activity and dietary behaviours. Annals of Behavioral Medicine (2006) 31:205–223.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
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