Last year, we celebrated the centennial of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Founded as the American Journal of Diseases of Children, with Abraham Jacobi as its father, the journal has played a central role in the evolution of pediatrics as a specialty and in the tremendous progress in combating morbidity and mortality in the pediatric age group. Our current name of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine was adopted in 1994 to emphasize its membership in the 10 journals that make up JAMA and the Archives Journals. The introduction of The JAMA Network in April of this year renewed and reinforced the close links among these journals in a unified editorial and publishing system.
We are very pleased to announce that our journal will be renamed JAMA Pediatrics beginning with the January 2013 issue, the start of our 102nd year of publishing. In addition to a new name, we will also have a new look and feel to our print version. The online version, dramatically updated and energized in May, will undergo further evolution with this name change. The accompanying editorial by all the editors in The JAMA Network describes the innovations across the system.
We (the editors, our editorial board, and the leadership in The JAMA Network) have thought carefully about our new name. We have chosen the name JAMA Pediatrics to be as inclusive as possible and to signify our interest in readers and in the leading science across the broad field that pediatrics represents today. Pediatricians are involved in prenatal diagnosis and counseling, and care for the tiniest premature infants at the borders of viability. Caring for adolescents is now an established part of pediatric practice, and it is not unusual for pediatricians to care for patients into their mid-20s. Increasingly, pediatric subspecialties provide services to adults with congenital disorders such as sickle cell diseases, congenital heart disease, or cystic fibrosis, and many pediatricians care for teenage mothers, as well as their children. When the journal became the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, the subspecialty of adolescent medicine was new; the subboard examinations for adolescent medicine were first administered in 1994. The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine has been an important force in the growth and maturity of this subspecialty and a prime forum for showcasing research focused on adolescents. Today, adolescent medicine is an established discipline within the broader field of pediatrics, and the evolution of our name from American Journal of Diseases of Children to Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine to JAMA Pediatrics reflects this broadening of the bailiwick of the field, the deepening of the knowledge and expertise of its members, and our commitment to all who care for and about individuals in this age group. Although “adolescent medicine” will no longer be in our name, clinical care of adolescents and advancing the science of adolescent medicine remain a central part of who we are as a journal.
The way we access and use information is constantly and rapidly changing. The ability to find relevant information on a wide variety of web-enabled devices at any time of the day is both wondrous and challenging for providers and patients. Our job at JAMA Pediatrics and The JAMA Network is to provide you with the most rigorously examined science available in an easily accessible way and to be the source of information that you use regularly and trust thoroughly. This will be accomplished with an integrated system of journals, linked by semantic tagging online, and with our mobile phone and electronic tablet applications. The print redesign will emphasize the continuity across journals, while preserving the distinct nature of our work and our devotion to the pediatric population. We believe that this closer integration of The JAMA Network will allow us to better serve the needs of our readers and authors. As a member of this new network, we at JAMA Pediatrics look forward to publishing and providing the latest innovations and information about pediatric health and health care.
Correspondence: Dr Rivara, Department of Pediatrics, Child Health Institute, University of Washington, 6200 74th St NE, Ste 120B, Seattle, WA 98115 (fpr@u.washington.edu).
Author Contributions:Study concept and design: Christakis, Joffe, Keren, Davis, Shah, and Rivara. Acquisition of data: Christakis. Drafting of the manuscript: Keren and Rivara. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Christakis, Joffe, Keren, Davis, and Shah.
Financial Disclosure: None reported.