Cadernos de Saúde Pública: 20 anos

Abstract

The year 2004 is particularly re l e vant for all those who have participated in the history of Ca d e rnos de Saúde Pública (C S P) /Re p o rts in Public He a l t h, since the journal is now celebrating 20 years of uninterrupted publication. Founded in 1985 under the leadership of two visionari e s, Fre d e rico Simões Barbosa and Luis Fe rnando Fe r re i ra, over the course of two decades CSP has reached an outstanding position among its peers. Not least, a journal like CSP is ra re in the Latin American and Brazilian scientific publishing community, marked by numerous peri o d icals that are either short-l i ved or published on an irregular basis. Political and institutional instability and budget fluctuations have been identified as the main factors jeopardizing both the quantitative and qualitative development of Latin American scientific peri o d i c a l s. CSP has not been completely immune to these factors in its own history. In order to ove rcome such obstacles, besides the linkages among those most directly invo l ved in producing the journal, crucial support has always come from va rious sectors among potential users of scientific journals in the country, especially re s e a rc h e r s, health pro f e s s i o n a l s, and s t u d e n t s. This diversity is currently reflected in the journ a l's pages. The authors and re a ders display extremely va ried pro f i l e s, identified with the broad spectrum of the health prof e s s i o n s, including the va rious fields of the social sciences and biology. It is highly significant that CSP has become one of the main bridges between the academic and scientific community and health serv i c e s. A few statistics will help illustrate the history of CSP. Du ring its first decade, 35 art icles we re published annually, on ave rage; in the last three years this figure has nearly quintupled, to 173 per ye a r. Volume 19 (2003) included no less than 231 art i c l e s. As for the aut h o r s' affiliations, CSP has achieved a pro d u c t i ve balance between those from the Na t i o n a l School of Public Health itself and other institutions. Du ring its first decade of publication, some 48% of the authors we re from other institutions. In recent volumes this pro p o rt i o n has reached 81%. Another significant trend is that 13% of the authors publishing in CSP in recent years are from outside of Brazil, pri m a rily from Latin America, Eu ro p e, the Un i t e d St a t e s, and Canada. These results are important, particularly since CSP is an institutional j o u rnal, demonstrating ample possibilities for access to publication and highlighting peer review as the underlying cri t e rion for article selection. As for circulation and distri b u t i o n , one can safely say that CSP is now among the most widely read scientific journals in Bra z i l. Ac c o rding to statistics recently published by the Scientific El e c t ronic Libra ry Online-S c iE LO, of all the journals belonging to the database (118), CSP is the periodical with the most article downloads in recent ye a...