Open Access: A Researcher’s Perspective, Thoughts and Experience

Dr. Douglas Scutchfield from UK College of Public Health discusses the benefits of open access from the researcher\u27s perspective, and his personal experience of taking the lead to support open access by creating a new open access journal, Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research. The slide deck is available by clicking the Download button on the right. The video and photos of this segment are available for download by clicking the links listed under the additional files shown below

Frontiers in PHSSR is on the Move

Recently, Dr. Jenine Harris and her colleagues examined the use of journals by state chronic disease prevention staff to stay up-to-date on public health evidence. We, at Frontiers in PHSSR, are pleased to be included among the journals listed in the survey. Online open-access journals are shifting the paradigm of scientific publication, allowing free and rapid exchange of information. Another illustration of Frontier’s increasing utility is a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). We are pleased that AJPH has agreed to publish selected abstracts from Frontiers in PHSSR in their regular issue with links to the full articles available in our online journal

Students, Research, and the Health of Appalachia

The notion of publication in the peer-reviewed literature out of your doctoral or master’s thesis/dissertation or capstone is a characteristic of those who choose a career in the academy. This paper illustrates my pleasure by reflecting a student taking the additional step in research achievement by publishing results that contribute new knowledge to evidence-driven research and practice

The Cost of Public Health Services

Paying for public health services is and remains a consistent concern among local health departments. The data on the impact of the 2008 recession on public health nationally demonstrated the problems with maintaining staff and services in the face of a declining resource base. This capacity to provide funding for provision of public health services has prompted a number of mechanisms to provide support for dealing with revenue shortfalls. The papers in this issue of Frontiers in PHSSR continue to echo that concern of how best to deal with loss of funding, measuring it and developing tools to ascertain the impact of service cost

Root Causes of Appalachia’s Deaths of Despair

The U.S. is experiencing a decline in life expectancy, particularly among rural white males in their most productive years. Appalachia is disproportionally represented in mortality rates, accounting for 30% of the U.S. population, but 50% of the excess mortality attributed to the “deaths of despair”: drug overdose, suicide, and alcoholic cirrhosis. A substantial proportion of that excess mortality is related to the current opioid crisis we are experiencing. We have data on evidence-based solutions to the treatment of addiction, but little information on prevention of addiction as well as the other deaths of despair, likely with the same etiologic agent. We must focus on finding the root cause of the current epidemic, so that we can prevent this devastating mortality