Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing: A Different Approach

Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing, a new open access journal from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, takes an unusual approach to academic publishing. Here's what they have to say about their mission, audience, and approach:

Our Mission

This journal is intended to advance practice-oriented learning in the fields of public health communication and social marketing. As the first journal in these fields to focus exclusively on case studies, we publish peer-reviewed, commissioned and sponsored cases that have the potential to teach and improve the practice of public health. Each case we publish describes a public health program - or some aspect of a public health program - that is based at least in part on communication or marketing methods.

We believe there is much to be learned by critically analyzing real-world experience. Unlike at NASA, at this journal failure is an option. We encourage analysis of both successful and failed programs. By providing a platform to critically assess real-world case studies, this journal hopes to raise the bar on the practice of public health communication and marketing.

Our Target Audience and Approach

Most academic journals cater primarily to researchers. We believe that practitioners, students and teachers are also important audiences, so we designed this journal in a manner intended to engage all of them. Graduate students edit this journal. Graduate students - in partnership with practitioners and their academic advisors - are the lead authors of all peer-reviewed cases in this journal. And to give practitioners a chance to take the lead in critically analyzing their own work, we also feature commissioned and sponsored cases (that are not peer-reviewed). Unusual? We think so. Appropriate? We certainly hope so. You be the judge. But please provide us with feedback so that we can improve our approach over time.