After the run up to the launch of JAMA Cardiology in April 2016 and the 9 issues that followed in its first year, 2017 marked our first full year of publishing. Looking back, 2017 was a period of steady growth in original science manuscripts, opinions, reviews, and educational content and continued interest in the journal by the cardiovascular community. The 1328 manuscript submissions (Table) represent an increase of 10.8% and the 1040 research submissions represent an increase of 10% compared with the comparable 12 months of submissions in 2016. As with other competitive journals in our specialty, our acceptance rate of original science manuscripts has fallen into single digits.
Our weekly online content is now sent to nearly 25 000 readers, and there were more than 900 000 full-text/PDF downloads last year. We maintain an active presence on social media, and remarkably, our Twitter and Facebook followers have increased by 76% and 45%, respectively, during the past year. Feedback on our monthly podcasts has been very positive. As a member of the JAMA Network, our close connections with the dedicated JAMA editors and staff facilitate the many channels of delivery of our weekly and monthly content. Cardiovascular science continues to advance at a breathtaking pace, as does its opportunities for multimedia dissemination, and it is a privilege to serve as a conduit of fresh ideas, new scientific findings, and informative reviews.
The Table also lists the articles that have received the highest Altmetric scores in 2017 and the most citations over the past 2 years. This brief listing provides a glimpse of the broad cardiovascular landscape that is covered in JAMA Cardiology. Two articles highlight the ongoing interest among professional and lay readers on topics related to nutrition. Brandt et al1 identified an association between counties in New York that implemented bans in trans-fats and hospital admissions for myocardial infarction and stroke compared with counties with trans-fat bans, and Scragg et al3 in New Zealand reported a clinical trial in which vitamin D supplements did not have a positive association on incident cardiovascular disease. The article by Wang et al2 on the accuracy of wrist-worn heart monitors points to the growing awareness of the possibilities of digital health. Our highest-cited articles cover topics of valvular heart disease and atrial fibrillation from important national registries4,5 and an analysis of the lack of association of dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors and incident heart failure in patients with diabetes enrolled in international clinical trials.6
The primary value of the journal rests on its standing as a home for exceptional authors, and on behalf of the editors, I sincerely thank our authors who have accepted JAMA Cardiology as the source for publishing some of their finest efforts. We greatly appreciate the constructive comments, suggestions, and criticisms we continue to receive from our authors and readers. As a work in progress, this feedback has helped to fine-tune the look and feel of the journal. Our content has been listed in PubMed since July 2016. In 2017, JAMA Cardiology was accepted into Web of Science, and we anticipate the journal’s first impact factor will be released in June of this year.
The editors must also thank the hundreds of our colleagues who have served as peer reviewers.7 We recognize the time and effort required for effective peer review, and we are grateful for the knowledge and insights our reviewers have volunteered to enhance the analytic methods, data interpretation, and take-home messages of our manuscripts. This effort is not rewarded appropriately, but it remains the backbone of manuscript evaluation and is greatly appreciated. Perceptive reviews often translate into editorials and invited commentaries that accompany the original article and help to place the new findings in context.
Scientific publishing is a team sport, and maintaining this level of productivity requires the dedicated efforts of JAMA Cardiology’s talented deputy and associate editors who take valuable time from their busy professional and personal lives to oversee the flow of manuscripts and collectively provide the strategic vision of the journal. Our group spends hundreds of hours critiquing manuscripts, communicating with authors and reviewers, and making editorial decisions to generate the content of our pages. Working together, we deliberate each week as we strive to select the most seminal, interesting, and thought-provoking articles and opinions of interest to our readership.
As JAMA Cardiology matures, we look forward to maintaining the momentum we have created in our first 2 years of publishing and achieving our vision to take a position among the premier journals in our discipline. Through your contributions to our scientific manuscripts, reviews, Viewpoints, Editorials, and Invited Commentaries, we will continue to contribute prominently to the discourse that is fueling the advances in cardiovascular medicine.
Corresponding Author: Robert O. Bonow, MD, MS, Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 251 E Huron St, Galter 3-150, Chicago, IL 60611 (robert.bonow@nm.org).
Published Online: March 21, 2018. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2017.4979
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: The author has completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.
4.Edwards
FH, Cohen
DJ, O’Brien
SM,
et al; Steering Committee of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons/American College of Cardiology Transcatheter Valve Therapy Registry. Development and validation of a risk prediction model for in-hospital mortality after transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
JAMA Cardiol. 2016;1(1):46-52. doi:
10.1001/jamacardio.2015.0326PubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref 6.McGuire
DK, Van de Werf
F, Armstrong
PW,
et al; Trial Evaluating Cardiovascular Outcomes With Sitagliptin (TECOS) Study Group. Association between sitagliptin use and heart failure hospitalization and related outcomes in type 2 diabetes mellitus: secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial.
JAMA Cardiol. 2016;1(2):126-135. doi:
10.1001/jamacardio.2016.0103PubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref