CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF PREVENTION SCIENCE

SPR Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, June 2, 2010

The Society for Prevention Research is pleased to celebrate 10 years of its journal Prevention Science. The first issue (March 2000) of the quarterly journal Prevention Science was the culmination of the work of a group of pioneers in the field. Ralph Tarter (University of Pittsburgh) played a leading role in establishing the journal by developing support for a journal within the Society, identifying potential publishers, and arranging the initial meeting between Plenum and Gil Botvin (Weill Medical College, Cornell University.) Botvin had a series of discussions with several publishers and ultimately negotiated a 10-year contract with Plenum. A critical element of that contract was establishing SPR’s ownership rights to the journal (Prevention Science), something that most other publishers would not accept.

Gil Botvin’s NIDA-funded center at Cornell helped provide the support and infrastructure for Prevention Science. Another key person in the development of Prevention Science was Mary Sharkey, an experienced science editor who served part-time as managing editor.

During these formative years of the journal, many individuals contributed their time and expertise to the success of the journal. They are the journal’s editorial board, consulting editors (2000: Linda Collins and Sheppard Kellam), associate editors (2001-2005: Linda Collins, Sheppard Kellam, Doreen Koretz, and Steven Schinke; 2006-present: Felipe Castro, David MacKinnon, Steve Schinke and Zili Sloboda), reviewers, and authors who courageously submitted their work to a fledgling journal.

Gil Botvin served as Editor for the first seven years of the journal and in January 2007, Robert McMahon (University of Washington) took on the job of Editor.

In the ten years since its inception, the journal has grown in importance in the prevention science community and established itself as the premier journal for the field of prevention. The journal’s most recent 2-year Impact Factor (for 2008) is 2.426, which places it 11th out of 76 journals in its category (Public, Environmental, and Occupational Health). From 2005 to 2009 the number of manuscripts submitted through the online manuscript system, Editorial Manager, increased more than 281%; and PDF downloads (an indicator of electronic usage) increased 275% between 2006-2009 (from 17,137 to 47,070), and increased 55% between December 2008 and December 2009.

The Board of Directors of the Society for Prevention Research would especially like to thank Ralph Tarter, Gil Botvin, Bob McMahon, members of the editorial board, and consulting and associate editors. We would like to offer a special thank you to Steve Schinke for his ten years of distinguished service to the journal in his roles as a reviewer, consulting editor, and associate editor and to all our reviewers and authors.  In addition, we would also like to acknowledge the significant contributions of Sandy Lahn, who has served as Managing Editor for the past 3 years, Lastly, we thank our current publisher Springer, Judy Jones, and Bill Tucker for their continued support of Prevention Science.