Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being—A farewell editorial

Abstract

For the past 16 years, I have had the pleasure and privilege of serving our community as co-editor-in-chief of Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. As my term comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect briefly on the journal's development over these years and to thank all those who have contributed to its success.

In 2006, I was approached by Michael Frese and Raymond Fowler, then leading officers of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), to become editor of a new publication intended to complement their long-standing flagship journal, Applied Psychology: An International Journal, which was in its 54th year. The goal was to broaden the scope with a particular emphasis on health and well-being, inspired by the positive psychology movement at that time. Together, we designed the aims and scope of this innovative publication, and shortly thereafter, we adopted Christopher Peterson (USA) as a co-editor-in-chief. The journal was officially launched in July 2008 at the 29th International Congress of Psychology (ICP) in Berlin, Germany. For marketing purposes, this inaugural issue was published as a supplement to the well-established sister journal, Applied Psychology: An International Journal. Beginning in 2009, Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being began publishing three regular issues per year, later expanded to four issues.

Following the untimely death of Chris Peterson in 2012, Aleksandra Luszczynska (Poland), an international leader in health psychology, succeeded him as co-editor-in-chief in 2016 and made significant contributions to the journal's growth and reputation. In 2020, she passed the gavel to co-editor-in-chief Yiqun Gan (China), whose outstanding leadership ensures the journal's continued success.

The editorial workload has increased steadily. In 2023, we received a record 942 original manuscripts and 230 revised manuscripts. For accepted papers, the average time from submission to final decision was 133 days. Due to space limitations, many high-quality papers could not be included, with an acceptance rate of around 10%. We sincerely thank the growing number of authors who submitted their best work. I am pleased to see the journal consolidating and expanding its position among psychology journals. The 2023 Journal Impact Factor (Clarivate) has been 3.8, the CiteScore (Scopus) has been 12.1, and there had been 355,188 full text views of online journal articles.

This evolving landscape promises to shape the future direction of the journal, ensuring it remains at the forefront of innovative research in positive health psychology.

It is now time to pass the torch. I am pleased to announce that Jennifer Inauen (Switzerland), an internationally renowned health psychologist, will be the next co-editor-in-chief beginning in 2025. She is committed to serving the journal well into the future. I wish her every success in leading the journal, together with Yiqun Gan, to new and prosperous heights for the benefit of our entire readership. I hope that our community will continue to benefit from the high-quality scholarship of Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being for many years to come.