Editorial
José da Rocha Carvalheiro
Editor
The Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia is celebrating its sixth anniversary with an auspicious fact: publishing, while still in April 2003, the issue corresponding to this date. We have achieved this objective, pursued since the beginning, thanks to the joint efforts of our body of Associate Editors and ad hoc Reporters, appointed in the scientific community of the area; Secretaries of the Revista (Marina and Rita) and Abrasco's Executive Secretaries (Álvaro and Mônia); and with the indispensable contributions of our proofreaders, standardizers, and translators; and the publishing and graphic design team. But, above all, thanks to the scientific community, which proved its trust by sending its contributions, in a continuous flow that is a sign of how current the coming issues will be. Being "on schedule" has permitted us to open a new section, News & Events, in addition to commissioning Special Editorials on current themes. In this issue, Expedito Luna, Professor of the Social Medicine Department of Faculdade de Medicina da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo ( Medical School of São Paulo's Santa Casa de Misericórdia) addresses Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Obviously, concepts stated by the author are of his own exclusive responsibility, and the Revista is open to debate on this very current theme.
This issue, like those that result from spontaneous demand, includes a wide range of themes, methods and origin of authors. As has become a habit in our Revista, there are no single-authored papers. In the six Brazilian papers, the average number of authors is three. A paper from Argentina has the unusual number of twelve authors: five from the Faculdade de Ciências Veterinárias da Universidade Nacional de La Pampa (Veterinary Sciences College of La Pampa National University); seven from the Secretaria de Saúde da Província de Rio Negro (Health Department of the Province of Rio Negro), one of them also a lecturer at the same University; and one from the Instituto Nacional de Enfermidades Infecciosas (National Institute of Infectious Diseases). This contingent of authors is certainly due to the nature of the work conducted in the field, in the laboratory and of the epidemiological analysis that the theme requires: epidemiological surveillance of the hantavirus in rodents and in humans in southern Argentina.
The Brazilian papers include one written in Rio de Janeiro, in an outpatient unit for the elderly, by a Professor of the Department of Epidemiology and Quantitative Methods and by an Advisor of the State Health Department, on the inverse association between hypertension and cognitive deficits in the elderly. Another paper, written by two Professors of UNIFESP, São Paulo, and one of the Social Medicine Department of Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (USP's Ribeirão Preto Medical School), deals with the data from a diabetes multicenter study, investigating gender differences in newly diagnosed diabetes in active search, in contrast to self-referred diabetes: it is proportionally higher among poor men.
Three professors of Faculdade de Saúde Pública da USP (USP's School of Public Health), in a cohort study of children born in a University Hospital, in São Paulo, relate the introduction of foods to complement maternal milk in the first year of life, with socioeconomic and demographic variables. A study by five professors from the state of Rio Grande do Sul analyzes the performance of physical breast examination by physicians, associated to social class, skin color and variables used by the health system. They designed a cluster sampling cross-sectional study. They belong to Universidade Federal de Pelotas (Pelotas Federal University), Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Sinos River Vale University) and to Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Rio Grande do Sul Federal University) (UFRS).
Two papers, both written in São Paulo, are epidemiological studies related to dentistry, a subject which is gradually becoming a prevailing feature of the Revista, which accepts contributions from that field. One of them was carried out in the city of São Paulo, using the data from the Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System) (SUS) to study dental emergencies. It was written by two professors of Faculdade de Saúde Pública da USP (USP's School of Public Health). The second paper was written by a professor of Universidade Católica de Santos (Santos Catholic University), in São Paulo, from the Faculdade de Saúde Pública and another one from the Faculdade de Odontologia (Dentistry College), both from USP, analyzing early tooth loss in adults. It was based on a non-probabilistic sample of 5,777 teachers and staff of public and private schools in 131 cities in the State of São Paulo.
The Revista maintains its commitment to the scientific community of the area, faithful to its wide range of themes and methods. It depends, more than ever before, on the response of this community in order to continue being one of the leading communication vehicles for quality scientific production in the area.
I hope you enjoy reading it.
The Editor
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
19 Mar 2005 -
Date of issue
Apr 2003
