Editorial messages: Contexts and Patterns of Health Behavior

The current issue of ANS has three important editorial messages that ANS readers will not want to miss.  My own editorial, titled “Editorial Standards of Quality: Examining Patterns of Health in Scholarly Publishing,” is part of the International Academy of Nursing Editor’s initiative focused on exposing the practices of predatory publishers, and affirming the high editorial standards that characterize credible and reliable journals.  If you have not yet examined this important issue, read this editorial and the resources that I reference in it.  You can also refer to my recent blog addressing the broad topic of open access publishing, a credible publishing model founded on the intent to make scientific research freely available to all. However digital open access publishing has also opened the door to editorial practices by some that compromise editorial standards, and it is incumbent on all scholars to be fully informed about these practices in order to distinguish which practices are sound and which are not.

Dr. Mickey Eliason, a leading scholar in the area of LGBT health, examines the influence of neoliberalism in shaping health behavior in her guest editorial titled “Neoliberalism and Health.”  Dr. Eliason focuses on the neoliberal ideal of individualism and examines how this ideal creates the tendency to overlook contextual, upstream factors that shape patterns of health behavior.  Essentially, Dr. Eliason takes a critical look at the upstream factors that shape patterns of scholarship, and how researchers can resist the tendency to study individual factors without adequately integrating contextual factors.

Dr. Richard Cowling has also contributed a guest editorial to this issue titled “Contextualizing Patterns of Health Behavior: A Unitary-Emancipatory-Transformative Perspective.” Dr. Cowling also addresses the necessity of contextualizing health behavior in the quest to reach for wholeness. He explains that wholeness can only be fully appreciated from a perspective that fully integrates the contexts in which human behavior occurs.

All of these editorials are available at no cost on the ANS web site.  Visit the web site now to download your copy, and return here to share your own perspectives and ideas.