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Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to welcome you to the inaugural publication of Core Functions, a quarterly newsletter of AJPM Focus, the newly launched fully open access journal of APTR and ACPM. AJPM Focus is off to a great start, having received dozens of submissions already since we opened our submission portal on Editorial Manager in early February 2022! We look forward to receiving many more submissions in the months and years to come and to curating a body of research and scholarly evidence that helps guide prevention teaching, research, and practice across the global spectrum of health.
The name “Core Functions” holds special significance in the hearts of all who work in the realm of prevention. Specifically, the term “core functions” was developed and promulgated in 1988 by the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) in its landmark publication The Future of Public Health, updated in 2002, to better articulate and operationalize the mission of public health as consisting of assessment, policy development, and assurance. This was done at a time when the full scope of this mission was unclear to the general public, relevant stakeholder groups or organizations, and even members of the public health profession.
The 21st century’s first truly global pandemic and ongoing population health crises such as obesity and opioid use disorder all reconfirm the value of prevention. AJPM Focus reaffirms the value of these core functions but expands the foci of preventive medicine and public health by recognizing in its scope and aims statement the full diversity of functions that preventive medicine physicians and public health professionals fulfill today towards achieving population health goals.
We invite you to join us in making these foci of preventive medicine and public health, and their evidentiary basis, ever clearer in the minds of all stakeholders, including the general public, clinicians, practitioners, educators, researchers, and policymakers.
Salud!
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