The Journal Epidemiologia e Psichiatria Sociale (EPS), published by Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore (Roma) over the last 19 years, has been acquired by Cambridge University Press, and from 2011 will be renamed as Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences (EPS).
I established Epidemiologia e Psichiatria Sociale (EPS), in 1992, as an international, peer-reviewed journal providing updated data and scientific information to epidemiologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, statisticians and other research and mental health workers primarily concerned with public health and epidemiological and social psychiatry. At its inception, the Journal was conceived as a platform to encourage Italian researchers to adopt and conform to international standards of publication; to offer a vehicle, especially to younger researchers, to publish in their native language and develop their scientific portfolio of publications, but with the highest standards of peer review being implemented. Since these early steps, the Journal has developed beyond the original conception and especially in international appeal. For the last few years, research content has been published primarily in the English language.
From 2011 onwards EPS will be published in English and only a small number of letters to the editor will continue to be published in Italian. Moreover, we will continue to publish both in English and in Italian the Foreword by a Guest Editor and the Editor to three invited Editorials that will appear in each issue, all dedicated to the same theme, chosen for its relevance for mental health research and practice.
EPS will also benefit from an online presence on Cambridge's cutting-edge electronic platform, Cambridge Journals Online (journals.cambridge.org/eps), providing increased usability and state-of-the-art functionality.
I am pleased that EPS moved to Cambridge University Press and I am sure that this will significantly enhance its distribution worldwide and will help to continuously improve the quality of the Journal. The new agreement will offer the Journal a truly global presence and add academic standing through the association with the related Journals in Psychiatry and Psychology published by Cambridge University Press, especially Psychological Medicine.
Michael Shepherd (Reference Shepherd1986), referring to Psychological Medicine, which he founded in 1970, wrote: ‘Our initial task was to tackle 3 questions, namely the colour of the dust-jacket, an agreement on objectives, and a title’. The new EPS will keep the green colour, both for assuring consistency over the past and for confirming the initial choice of the colour traditionally associated with hope: the hope that research will contribute, to a greater extent than in the past, to provide better mental health care to our patients and their families. The objective of the new EPS is to publish original and high-quality papers across the wide spectrum of both psychiatry and its allied disciplines, with particular attention to epidemiology and to the public health approach, as indicated in the new title, which confirms the old acronym (EPS).
A key role in the development of a scientific Journal is played by the Editors. Editing a psychiatric journal is a difficult and responsible job. EPS has recently published four Editorials, written by leading Editors of psychiatric Journals (Maj, Reference Maj2010; Munk Jorgensen, Reference Munk Jorgensen2010; Pariante, Reference Pariante2010; Tyrer, Reference Tyrer2010) to discuss how Editors of these journals perceive their role. If the Editor's ultimate goal of many Journals, including EPS, is to improve practice for providing better care for patients, we should remember that simple diffusion and passive dissemination of information, made by scientific journals while they stimulate new ideas, are at the same time necessary and useful, but not sufficient at changing practice. As I stated in my comment (Tansella, Reference Tansella2010), ‘What is actually done in clinical care, after new information is provided by scientific journals, is out of the control of the Editors. For editing a journal, we need not only experience and ethical commitment but also rules, standards and good models. But which is the best model? According to Box (Reference Box1979), a statistician, ‘All models are wrong, but some are useful’. This dictum applies in many fields'.
