New GeoHealth Journal Supports Emerging Field

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) announced the launch of its newest journal, GeoHealth. AGU and John Wiley & Sons Inc. are initiating the new, open-access, peer-reviewed journal. The journal supports and enables the emerging, transdisciplinary field of Geohealth, which includes the intersection of Earth and environmental sciences with human, agricultural and environmental health.

Collaborative efforts between geoscientists, ecologists, and environmental and health professionals can influence global change in agricultural and ecological health and services, inform public health campaigns, and have direct benefits to human health and the environment. The discipline is expected to grow as geoscience research in environmental factors becomes increasingly important to understanding global and local issues related to health and the environment. Technological developments will also evolve the field.

GeoHealth will cover the sciences that explore how natural disasters and environmental changes in oceans, the atmosphere, and on land affect public health, disease, agriculture and ecology. The topics will span global, regional, and local issues, including air and water pollution, the use and impact of herbicides and pesticides, radiation, the impact of climate change, and resource use.

Rita R. Colwell has been appointed founding editor of GeoHealth. Colwell is a distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland at College Park and at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She served as the 11th director of the National Science Foundation and is a former president of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Microbiology. 

"AGU looks forward to supporting the growth and recognition of geohealth as we partner with Wiley to provide a new platform for exploring, and ultimately encouraging, the collaborations between Earth scientists and health professionals," said Margaret Leinen, AGU president. "We also look forward to expoloring all of the other ways that we can support and encourage development in this exciting, new transdisciplinary field." 

"Scientists' efforts to understand and address current environmental and related health challenges will be well-served by platforms such as this which serve as a bridge across disciplines to solve global challenges," said Colette Bean, vice president & society publishing director, Global Research, John Wiley & Sons.

"I've spent much of my career focused on this broad and important intersection of different disciplines and seen first-hand the benefits and applications that Earth science and ecology can have on the health of environments and humans worldwide, and I'm excited to help AGU develop a new journal, GeoHealth, as part of a larger initiative to grow and showcase this science" Colwell said. "Offering a high quality home that brings together these fields will serve to enrich and advance the science and provide broad impacts on a global scale."

The new journal joins AGU's portfolio of research publications. As with AGU's other open access journal's, GeoHealth will publish articles under the Creative Commons Attribution License, enabling authors to be fully compliant with open access requirements of funding organizations where applicable. All articles will be deposited in PubMed Central immediately upon publication to comply with NIH mandates. 

Source: American Geophysical Union