Copyright © 1995, 1997 by Steven J. Milloy. All rights reserved. First edition. Published by the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20002. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 95-72177. International Standard Book Number: 0-9647463-2-8.
Chapter 12
Where to Publish You should aim to get your research published in one of the better known scientific journals. These include The New England Journal of Medicine (the best known and most prestigious of all), The Journal of the American Medical Association (the AMA imprimatur is always very impressive), andThe American Journal of Public Health (the official voice of the American Public Health Association and read by most card-carrying public health researchers).
Then there's the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, part of the federal government's famous (and cash-heavy) National Institutes of Health, and the American Journal of Epidemiology, published by the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the world's most prestigious school of public health.
All these journals, closely watched by the national press, are the most likely to provide you with instant national attention. They have the most prestigious editorial boards. They are the public health equivalent of "prime time" on network television.
There are other good, but lesser known, scientific journals out there. Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for instance. But as the name implies, they might not be interested in the sort of work we're talking about here. Fortunately, there are many other publications out there. (Only a real public health geek knows how many.) In fact, there are so many, you are almost sure to get your results published somewhere.
If you're an "unknown," the prestigious journals may be somewhat out of reach. But, if you've followed this handbook and have a good story to tell, it's possible to overcome your... ahem... anonymity. You can still garner a substantial amount of attention with other journals, but you'll have to work a lot harder getting people to pay attention. Folks will wonder, "If your stuff is so good, how come it's not in a major journal?"
But if your research is published by a major journal, drop everything and make yourself completely available for interviews and media appearances. You may even want to think about media training courses to sharpen your communications skills. You've got to be able to tell a compelling story in a 20-second soundbite. Unfortunately, that's not something they teach in graduate school. But it may be more important than the research itself.
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