Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) had an incredible year in 2020. PCD received a record number of submissions, improved its impact factor, and appointed distinguished researchers, evaluators, community interventionists, health economists, statisticians, and other public health specialists to the journal’s Editorial Board, the Associate Editor team, and the Statistics Review Committee. its mission of disseminating proven and promising findings, innovations, and practices in chronic disease prevention and control from around the world. In 2020, PCD received its latest Journal Impact Factor, 2.144, a jump from 2.038 the previous year in the Web of Science Journal Citation Reports. PCD’s 5-Year Impact Factor is 2.822, very close to last year’s 5-Year Impact Factor of 2.844. The journal has a Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) of 22 out of 145 US journals in the category of Public, Environmental and Occupational Health; and PCD is ranked 3rd out of 19 open access US journals in this category.

PCD published high-quality peer-reviewed papers on chronic disease prevention and control efforts among children and young adults; the impact of psychological, emotional, and mental health on chronic disease management; translational research and chronic disease; and systematic reviews on timely public health topics. PCD processed 879 manuscripts (671 new submissions and 208 revised manuscripts) with an acceptance rate of 28%. PCD continued to place emphasis on manuscripts that provided insights on the development, implementation, and evaluation of population-based interventions to prevent chronic diseases and control disease effects on quality of life, morbidity, and mortality.

PCD published 4 collections that addressed long-standing and emerging public health challenges. In March, PCD published a collection on CDC’s High Obesity Program—a national program that provided funding to 11 land grant universities (LGUs) in states with counties experiencing a high prevalence of adult obesity (greater than 40%). The collection, consisting of 9 peer-reviewed papers, details strategies implemented to improve access to healthy food and opportunities for physical activity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised global concerns on many fronts. In August, PCD released a special supplement featuring 16 commentaries authored by leading experts in public health, medicine, infectious disease, health disparities, health equity, pharmacy, oral health, geoscience, and beyond. Commentaries featured in this supplement offer early thinking in emerging public health approaches to address COVID-19 and chronic diseases.

The growing burden of chronic diseases requires learning ways to expand the diversity of expertise available to help improve the nation’s health. The expanded role of pharmacists will position them to have greater impact in the shifting landscape of health care and public health. Beyond the dispensing of medications, pharmacists also provide a spectrum of prevention services to help improve health outcomes. PCD wanted to highlight how the field of pharmacy, in collaboration with public health, is working to address public health related to chronic management in diverse settings. In September, PCD released a collection, “Public Health and Pharmacy: Collaborative Approaches to Improve Population Health,” that featured 16 peer-reviewed articles offering insights into the use of pharmacists in conducting community health needs assessments, disease surveillance, and monitoring of health outcomes.

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2020PCDYearInReview.pdf