The final edition of 2014 ends a nine-year period of scientific publishing which, working together with the journal’s editorial council, has made significant achievements in consolidating Saúde e Sociedade as a nationally and internationally relevant scientific journal. Saúde e Sociedade journal’s indexation and maintenance in important bibliographic databases stands out. In 2006, the journal was indexed in the Cambridge Sociological Abstracts and in the CSA Social Services Abstract; in 2008 in SciELO – Scientific Electronic Library on Line; Thomson Reuters, Scisearch, Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition; Ulrich’s International Periodical Directory and Latindex, inaugurating a new stage of open access to the full versions of the articles.

Further indexations occurred in 2009, EBSCO Publishing and, in 2010, Library of Congress Cataloging and Scopus.

Thenceforth, there was a significant increase in the number of authors submitting articles, enabling a greater selection of works to be published, as well as increasing the frequency with which the journal was issued. Saúde e Sociedade became a quarterly publication and achieved the publishing milestone of 100 articles per year. Another important point was the greater diversity in the origins and topics of the articles, as well as broadening the body of ad hoc partnerships. The journal’s inter-disciplinary scope was consolidated and widened, Saúde e Sociedade received articles from researchers from the health area and related areas such as geography, anthropology, environmental sciences, urban planning, demographics, political science, engineering and social services.

The task of publishing involves new and old challenges: 1. Working at the interface of scientific areas whose theoretical-epistemological references are often divergent, such as social and human sciences and health sciences. 2. Publishing in different languages, especially if we bear in mind that, in Brazil, in the areas of social and human sciences the percentage of bilingual articles is low. 3. Increasing the number of its articles cited in national and international journals. 4. Increasing the publication’s penetration in non-academic research media. 5. Dealing with distortions due to the policy of attributing “qualis” scores to journals, and to disproportionate productivity demands. 6. Making the publishing administration more professional and modern. 7. Ensuring the journal’s financial sustainability.

We highlight the important partnership between the two institutions responsible for the Saúde e Sociedade journal – the Faculty of Public Health, USP (FSP/USP) and the Associação Paulista de Saúde Pública (APSP), enabling interlocution of academic production with the health care services and may be a contributing factor in the demand for articles published. In 2014, in the Portal of USP Journals, Saúde e Sociedade was 5^th of the most downloaded journals published by the university, with 128,698 downloads between January and mid-September, with a mean of 19,000 per month. Thus, our efforts can be seen in the broad and relevant dissemination of the scientific output provided by Saúde e Sociedade, highlighting its role and its social contribution.

From 2015, Aurea Ianni, professor, FSP/USP, and Eunice Nakamura, representing the APSP, will be in charge of the journal’s scientific editing.

In addition to the “Geography in Knowledge Crossover” dossier, this edition contains 24 articles by researchers from different regions of Brazil. They discuss the approach to the social in the field of social determinants, the financing of universal health, social policies and those who live on the street, the right to health for those who have been deprived of their liberty, the racial perspective in a census of psychiatric hospitals, health management, regionalization, humanization and communication in health practices, patient safety in medication use, obesity, workers health, food intake and the use of family agricultural produce in school meals.

Saúde e Sociedade thus reaffirms its inter-disciplinary nature in the field of Public Health.

Helena Ribeiro e Cleide Lavieri Martins
Edictors

Publication Dates