Journal of Comprehensive Health: Today and Tomorrow

“Nothing in science has any value to society if it is not communicated,” said the noted American Psychologist and writer Anne Roe long back in 1952.¹ Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM), West Bengal (WB) Chapter as a professional and academic body realized the necessity of publishing a journal of its own to provide a platform to publish the scientific research works of those including but not restricted to the members of IAPSM, medical teachers, postgraduates, epidemiologists, and social scientist. The long cherished dream of our members came true when the Journal of Comprehensive Health (JCH) (e-ISSN: 2347-498X) came to light and started its journey in July 2013.

JCH is an open-access, peer-reviewed, international, evidence-based journal encouraging communication among those engaged in research, teaching, and application of epidemiology of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Since its inception, uninterruptedly, two issues, both printed and electronic versions, have been published annually and accommodated articles of authors from various parts of Indian subcontinents with special emphasis on original research, review articles, systematic review/meta-analysis, etc., relevant to the developing countries perspective.

We have published many important original, short research, and review articles which are academically stimulating especially to the postgraduates and research scholars. Among the articles published in the recent past, few are mentioned here. Professor Harivansh Chopra, former national president of IAPSM, in his editorial article, critically analyzed the 1000 versus 365 days approach for prevention of undernutrition in children.² In her editorial writing, Mallik discussed precisely the family adoption program, a newly adopted initiative of the National Medical Commission to make the curriculum of community medicine more community-oriented; she also equally mentioned challenges to address to make the program sustainable.³ A book, “Health Promotion and Education: Foundations for Changing Health Behavior,” authored by Madhumita Dobe, was critically reviewed by Dasgupta.⁴ A short article on a cross-sectional study, “Attitude toward the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine among Pregnant Women of Rural and Urban area of North India,” revealed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women.⁵ A community-based cross-sectional study on the burden of reproductive tract infections and its determinants among reproductive age group women residing in rural and urban settings in North India published as an original research article reveals that rapid urbanization without filling in basic amenities is attributed to poor reproductive health.⁶ An original research conducted in an urban setting of West Tripura revealed the fact that birth dose vaccination had been drastically improved (95% of infants received hepatitis B and OPV “0” dose) after the implementation of public-private partnership, the model becoming an integral part of routine immunization.⁷ A study done in Chennai among software professional showed their proneness to develop workload-related morbidity like headache (45.4%), visual (75.7%), and musculoskeletal disorder (74.3%).⁸ A community-based cross-sectional observational study was conducted in one tribal and another non-tribal-dominated block of Assam among mothers or primary caregivers of children aged between 6 and 12 months. The result showed that the mean age of initiation of complementary feeding was seven months. A delay in the initiation of complementary feeding was seen more in the non-tribal population than the tribal population (64.1% vs. 57.9%).⁹ An important review article published in the January–June issue of 2022 discussed different aspects of pneumoconiosis as an ignored occupational disease where the role of pulmonary rehabilitation was not properly explored to improve quality of life.¹⁰ A facility-based knowledge, attitude, and practice study in primary healthcare facilities in a district of West Bengal about biomedical waste management among healthcare workers showed the gap between knowledge and practices, especially related to disposal following color coding.¹¹ We lost Dr. Dilip Mahalnabis, the famous clinical scientist and pioneer of Oral Rehydration Therapy, on October 16, 2022, in the City of Kolkata. JCH feels honored to publish an obituary on the great contributor to clinical medicine and public health in the July–December issue of 2022.

In the growing field of medical science and public health, newer knowledge, approaches, and technology are emerging; we are committed to encouraging our potential researchers to publish their findings bearing some impact on community health at large rather than on individual perspectives in a clinical setting. Depending on the need of the day, we have to widen the range of types of articles and consider publishing special issues on important, relevant, and emerging health problems.

JCH has already got DOI registration, which is assigned to each article published in it. As it is an open-access journal, articles published are easily viewed through Google Scholar, Research Gate, Science Gate, and EBSCO academic search engines. Nonetheless, there is enough scope to expand from comparatively limited reader access to a wider range of readers, nationally as well as globally. We are committed to making articles published in JCH highly visible to global researchers, medical professionals, and policymakers. Keeping up with the present-day requirement for wider dissemination, the Executive Committee of IAPSM, WB Chapter, with a thorough discussion with editorial board members, signed an MOU with Scientific Scholar Pvt. Ltd. for publishing JCH from New Year 2024 with the publication of the January issue. Scientific Scholar have already proved their excellence in this field by publishing 66 journals of national and international repute. Hopefully, our journey will be smooth, collaborative, cooperative, and forward-looking.

We have a strong and dedicated editorial team, a supportive executive committee of IAPSM, the WB Chapter, and scholarly members of the advisory board. The joint endeavor of all will push the journal forward to ensure quality publication. Our editorial team is committed to adhering to professional and industry guidelines and best practices in scientific publications, including the recommendation for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of scholarly works in Medical Journals issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the Committee on Publication Ethics. We strive to achieve a good impact factor and citation score, which acts as an indicator to measure the performance of the journal. At the same time, an effort will be made to get the journal indexed by abstracting and indexing services, including but not limited to Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, Medline, and PubMed Central.

I sincerely express my thanks and gratitude to our past and present presidents, secretaries, chief editors, editors, managing editors, and all the members of IAPSM for their support, cooperation, and contribution toward achieving the present height.

I sincerely welcome comments, suggestions, and contributions from readers, reviewers, and authors. In the time to come, we hope JCH will be one of the publishing destinations for quality research works of young scientists in India and abroad.