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AnnouncementsLynne Wilcox, Editor in Chief of Preventing Chronic Disease, RetiresAnnouncement posted 9/15/08 After guiding the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) first exclusively online journal from its “wouldn’t it be nice?” beginnings to its stalwart presence in the public health literature, Lynne Wilcox, MD, MPH, the inaugural editor in chief of Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD), retired August 1. During the transition period, Marta Gwinn, MD, MPH, associate director for epidemiology of CDC’s Office of Public Health Genomics, will serve as acting editor in chief of the journal. Lynne Wilcox arrived at CDC in 1988 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service medical epidemiologist. She felt the first stirrings of PCD in the early 1990s, during the arduous but satisfying process of producing From Data to Action, an authoritative book on CDC’s surveillance activities in the growing field of maternal and child health. Following that book’s 1995 publication, Wilcox and National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) director Jim Marks began discussing the need for a unique and ongoing publishing project: an online CDC journal dedicated to public health practice — as opposed to an exclusive focus on research — in chronic disease prevention. Wilcox’s subsequent appointment as director of the Division of Reproductive Health from 1996 to 2002 put that project on hold. But by 2002, when most of CDC’s partners were online and looking for venues to find, as well as publish, community-based information, Wilcox pressed ahead, with Marks’s full support. In January 2004, PCD blazed onto the Web in full text and full color — and before long, in the “living color” of video clips and multimedia. From that first issue, the journal was widely embraced by the public health practice community, which could not always afford journal subscriptions and often lacked access to major libraries. Within a near-record six months, the journal showed it had arrived by being included in Index Medicus/Medline — a testament to Wilcox’s editorial acumen and managerial persistence. Posted to the Web quarterly, each issue of PCD carries some 40 peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed articles. These diverse presentations range from common chronic disease topics such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes to more recent public health focuses such as Alzheimer’s disease and depression. With its innovative and freely accessed offerings, PCD has found a growing and enthusiastic audience. Since the start of 2008 alone, the journal has had more than half a million Web hits. Wilcox’s pioneering presence and unabated enthusiasm for the journal and for public health will be missed. NCCDPHP is fortunate that Marta Gwinn is bringing her cutting-edge, public health genomics background to the helm of the first-rate staff and peer reviewers that Wilcox and her managing editor, Lesli Mitchell, have assembled over the years. NCCDPHP, CDC, and the entire public health community extend the heartiest thanks to Lynne Wilcox for her service and vision — and look forward to hearing from her through her next project, a book on public health events in the early 20th century. Readers can get a preview of this book in the October issue of PCD, which features Wilcox’s essay, “Worms & Germs, Drink & Dementia.”
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Privacy Policy | Accessibility This page last reviewed October 23, 2008
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