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Andreeva, T. I. (2012). Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe over its two year lifespan. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 55-57. doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.105483
Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe over its two year lifespan
Tatiana I. Andreeva
The Editorial Note overviews short history of TCPHEE, its current situation, and future plans. By the end of 2012, five issues have been published including three issues with full-text articles and two with conference proceedings. To date, original articles are the leading publication type (after abstracts), and English is the most frequent language of submissions. Authors originate from eight countries; TCPHEE has a slight majority of women among the authors and a large majority of men in the Editorial Board. Equal number of men and women provided peer-reviews of papers sub-
mitted to TCPHEE. Among the full-text manuscripts submitted to TCPHEE, 35% have been accepted. The papers submitted in 2012, if accepted, were published online within about two months after submission. TCPHEE is included in several abstracting systems and journal databases and has been visited by readers from 87 countries. To make interaction with the journal more convenient for both authors and reviewers, editors are going to switch to the online software of the Open Journal System in early 2013.
Журнал «Контроль над табаком и общественное здоровье в Восточной Европе» и его первые два года работы
Татьяна Андреева
Редакционная статья рассматривает короткую историю журнала ТСРНЕЕ, его нынешнюю ситуацию, а также ближайшие планы. До конца 2012 года было издано пять выпусков, включая три выпуска с полнотекстовыми статьями и два - с материалами конференций. К настоящему моменту оригинальные исследования являются ведущим типом публикаций (после тезисов конференций), и наиболее частым языком подаваемых работ является английский. Авторы опубликованных работ представляют восемь стран, среди них наблюдается небольшое преобладание женщин, в то время как в редакционной коллегии большинство составляют мужчины. Рецензен-
тами представленных работ были в равной мере как мужчины, так и женщины. Из полнотекстовых статей, представленных в ТСРНЕЕ, было принято 35%. Работы, представленные в 2012 году, если они были приняты, были опубликованы в течение примерно двух месяцев после подачи. ТСРНЕЕ присутствует в нескольких базах журнальных статей, и в последние месяцы его сайт посетили читатели из 87 стран. Чтобы сделать взаимодействие с журналом более удобным для авторов и рецензентов, редакция планирует переход на онлайновую систему журналов открытого доступа в начале 2013 года.
HISTORY
TCPHEE began in April 2011 with papers collected for the research conference ‘Tobacco and Health of Kazan citizens’ which originally were expected to be published elsewhere. As some of the earlier agreements failed, an opportunity
was created for establishment of a new journal. This undertaking seemed timely taking into account the research and scientific publications situation in the former USSR countries with peer-reviewed journals being almost non-existent.
The second issue was comprised of the abstracts presented at a scien-
tific conference ‘Economics, sociology, theory and practice of Public Health’.
Based on this experience, we have published in 2012 two regular issues, with full-text articles, and one supplementary (conference proceedings) issue.
To date original articles are the leading publication type (after abstracts), and English is the most frequent language of submissions (see Table 1).
representation
Authors of papers published in the TCPHEE originate from the following countries listed alphabetically: Georgia, Finland, France, India, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, and the USA.
As gender representation is a hot issue in scientific publishing nowadays, we note that TCPHEE has a slight majority of women among the authors and a large majority of men in the Editorial Board. Equal number of men and women provided peer-reviews of papers submitted to TCPHEE.
efficiency
Among the full-text manuscripts received by the TCPHEE editors in 2011-2012, 50% have been rejected, 35% have been accepted, and 15% are still in review or under revision.
While some papers submitted in
2011 have been published only in
2012 or still are under consideration, the editorial team managed to process papers submitted in 2012 quicker. These recent papers, if accepted, were published online within two months after submission. This was possible thanks to the quick reports from our reviewers, authors’ readiness to revise their manuscripts quickly, and the editors’ hard work.
To achieve this faster publication, we have also switched from accumulating accepted papers to be published as an issue once in 6 months to processing articles one by one upon acceptance.
visibility
TCPHEE is included in several abstracting systems and journal databases including (chronologically) Google Scholar, Directory of Open Access Journals, CAB International, Index Copernicus, elibrary.ru, Academic Journals Database, EBSCO and is currently under consideration in some other databases. It is also listed in several serial registries including Jour-nalSeek, SHERPA/RoMEO, ulrich-sweb.serialssolutions.com, and Free medical journals.
The TCPHEE website (http:// andreevin.narod.ru/j ournal) is currently well accessed from all over the world. In August-Decem-ber 2012, it has been visited by readers from 87 countries performing from one to over 500 views per country.
Main source of visits are the so-called ‘external referrals’. These are the transfers from journal databases, catalogues, libraries’ and social networks’ websites. As the TCPHEE website counter has displayed, many libraries in the Americas and Australia have included TCPHEE in their journal catalogues by summer 2012, many additional visits were registered from the libraries in Canada, several European and Asian universities in autumn 2012, as well as from the emerging journal registries in some of the central and eastern European countries. The information about the journal registries and libraries providing access to TCPHEE is regularly updated at the http://andreevin.narod.ru/journal/ eng/indexed.htm. External referrals are overall on the rise but are dependent on the activity of the potential readers in their database search and the size of personal net-
Table 1. Papers published in the TCPHEE in 2011-2012
Vol 1 No1 No2 No1 Vol 2 No2 Supp1 Total
Types of materials (n=92)
Original studies 4 5 5 14
Literature reviews 2 1 3
Editorial notes 1 1 1 1 1 5
Brief reports 5 5
Commentaries 1 1 2
Book reviews 1 1
Conference proceedings/abstracts 27 35 62
Languages
English 8 4 7 11 30
Russian 12 3 1 16
Ukrainian 2 1 5 8
Conference proceedings/abstracts in 18 20 38
2-3 languages
works of those who happened to be involved or interested in the papers published in TCPHEE in a particular month.
The second largest source of visits are the so-called ‘direct referrals’ when the readers have URLs of the publications they are interested in or the counter cannot identify where they have got the link. This can be mostly expected from the regular visitors of the TCPHEE web-site who have the TCPHEE URL in their favorites.
The smallest so far but an increasing source of traffic is formed by the visits through search systems. Google.com provides the prevailing number of visits compared to other search systems that constitutes over 90% of all the search-based visits. On the other hand, search-based visits are the least purposeful, and the indicator depicting those who visit just one page and leave is the highest with searches while being the lowest with those who practice direct transfers.
current issue
The second regular issue in Volume 2 includes five original studies, one commentary, and one book review. Four original studies in this issue are related to tobacco control in different countries, namely in France (Braillon, Mereau, & Dubois, 2012), Baltic countries (Krasovsky, 2012), Georgia (Bakhturidze, Peikrishvili, Mittelmark, & Aar0, 2012), and Ukraine (Andreeva, 2012). However, as TCPHEE is not limited to this domain of research, two papers in this issue are related to public health education (Piekkala, 2012) and research (Nordstrom, 2012) and difficulties in these areas faced by the countries of the former Soviet Union and potentially other
middle-income countries. A new type of publication emerging in the current issue of TCPHEE - book review - introduces the reader to an overview on how societal perception of alcohol and other drugs is shaped by means of cultural tools ("How we get to know what we know about alcohol. Book review: Vladimir Lovchev. Alcohol in European Culture," 2012).
future plans
With the growing visibility of our journal and the increased support from authors, reviewers, and the Editorial Board, we hope to be able to include in the next volume larger number of research papers that will cover crucial issues of public health.
We hope to be able to submit TCPHEE for consideration in more journal registries and bibliometric databases in order to further increase its visibility.
To make interaction with the journal more convenient for both authors and reviewers, we are now testing the online software of the Open Journal System, and we hope TCPHEE to be fully functional within this system early in 2013.
references
Andreeva, T. I. (2012). Differences by gender and education in responding to tobacco control measures implemented in Ukraine since 2005. [Original study]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 111-121.
Bakhturidze, G. D., Peikrishvili, N. T., Mittelmark, M. B., & Aar0, L. E. (2012). The public’s attitudes towards tobacco sales prohibitions: Evidence from a nationally representative survey in the former Soviet state of Georgia. [Original study]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 99108.
Braillon, A., Mereau, A. S., & Dubois, G. (2012). Tobacco control policy in France: from war to compromise and collaboration [Original study]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 59-66.
How we get to know what we know about alcohol. Book review:
Vladimir Lovchev. Alcohol in European Culture. (2012). [Book review]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 109110.
Krasovsky, K. S. (2012). Tobacco taxation policy in three Baltic countries after the EU accession. [Original study]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 81-98.
Nordstrom, D. L. (2012). Obstacles and solutions to the generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge in poor countries. [Commentary]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 77-79.
Piekkala, A. (2012). Challenges of Public Health Education in the former Soviet Union: Example of Ukraine. [Original study]. Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe, 2(2), 67-76.
