The Boletín Panamericano de Sanidad set the stage for what would be the journal’s long-term success from the publication of its very first issue in May 1922. The first issue brought to light the importance of transnational cooperation regarding public health campaigns, urging individual countries to codify into law the recommendations of international health conferences.
Until 1923 the Bulletin was published only in Spanish; in that year articles began to be published in Portuguese on subjects such as syphilis, tuberculosis, leprosy, smallpox, diphtheria, dental care and cutaneous leishmaniasis. In 1924, the publication began to be called the Bulletin of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau.
In its initial issues, the Boletín primarily published commissioned or translated papers. In the 1940s, it began accepting unsolicited papers about regionally focused original research and became a scientific information vehicle for all authors in the Region of the Americas.
Cover celebrating the 50th year of the Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana, 1952
From the 1950's onward content began to not only reflect, but give shape to knowledge trends in the international public health sphere. Such trends included links between health and social inequality and the increasing role of health in development. This article from the 50th anniversary highlights the journal's initial milestones and its continuous evolution.
Throughout the following decades, the Boletín’s content continued to evolve alongside the public health dialogue. The Boletín had assumed in its initial years the dual role of disseminating information on major health breakthroughs—such as the eradication of smallpox and poliomyelitis—and promoting informative content such as conference resolutions and research. Later, the Boletín branched off into several additional publications, including a separate English-language journal in 1966. As a result, the Boletín’s main focus was able to shift toward filling the gaps in public health knowledge.
In the 1980s the Boletín’s initial practice of organizational review gave way to a peer review system in line with the practices of other international biomedical publications. This increased the level of prestige for the journal and its contributing authors.
In 1997 PAHO decided to consolidate its three periodicals into its current single, multilingual format: The Pan American Journal of Public Health (PAJPH). PAJPH took the place of the Boletín de la Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana, the Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization, and Educación Médica y Salud.
In 1998, the Pan American Sanitary Conference decided to strengthen PAHO Publications Program, including the Pan American Journal of Public Health.
Transitioning to the web in the year 2000 further supported the publication’s visibility, prestige, and reach. Between 2001 and 2006 it experienced a five-fold increase in submissions and experienced substantial growth in the citation of its articles.
In 2006 the Journal launched its own website in order to expand its digital dissemination. While it had already bolstered its impact online through academic search platforms, the Journal's own website facilitated the distribution of its articles in an open-source, fully downloadable format . This has increased the publication’s overall competitiveness, resulting in higher quality articles and more prestige for its authors.
Complete digitalization of the Journal in 2009 gave another boost to the Journal’s impact. New outreach channels, such as academic search engines and social media, continue to propel public health knowledge toward a wider audience in the Region and beyond.
The Journal began including Digital Object Identifier (doi) in all published manuscripts to facilitate the dissemination and retrieval of papers. ORCID id, a unique author identification number, was added to the submission interface to avoid authorship errors. The Journal contents converted to open access under a Creative Commons licence, allowing a broader dissemination of published papers.
The Journal articles are open access and are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Journal was accepted in the Directory of Open Access, a data base for open access journals, a new channel for dissemination of the published manuscripts.
The Pan American Journal of Public Health launched its newly revamped website, more user-friendly and fully responsive to mobile devices, aiming at providing its readership a better experience and access to its contents. Now in its 98th year of publication, the Journal continues to further the legacy established by its earliest version in 1922. Although its content continues to evolve, the general goals of the publication remain the same: to keep pace with the Region’s public health trajectory; to provide a platform for hemispheric research; and to keep the Region’s public health professionals abreast of relevant issues.
All journal manuscripts are now deposited in PubMed Central, the full-text repository of the National Library of Medicine of the United States. Articles can be retrieved from PubMed, which includes a link to the full-texts. The inclusion in this repository enhances the visibility and dissemination of published manuscripts.
The Journal, jointly with BIREME, launches the Spanish version of a Course on Scientific Communication in Health Sciences to support researchers and authors and to promote scientific publishing. Access
A Portuguese version is also available.
In the three-year period 2014-2016, the Journal received 775 manuscripts per year on average. That number increased to 1049 articles per year in 2017-2019 and, in 2020, the Journal received a record number of manuscripts, with 1655 submissions.
The Journal begins its 100th year of uninterrupted publication.
