Sage has added two public health journals to its stable with deals to publish society journal Scandinavian Journal of Public Health (SJPH) and the Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health (APJPH) from the beginning of this year.

The partnerships are part of a strategy of expansion in core disciplines.

The publishing company’s managing director, Stephen Barr, told IWR: “Sage has a reservoir of content in social sciences. From that we are having a big push into medical content. As public health interacts with both areas, it is a natural area of strength.”

Sage has also set its sights firmly on the Asia-Pacific region.

“Over the past 18 months we have put a lot of energy into the Asia-Pacific operation,” said Barr. “Japan is the primary source of research in the English language [in that region] but China is rising rapidly.”

Sage bills itself as the world’s fifth largest society publisher.

Barr said: “This deal is a good reflection that we are being recognised by societies and we have taken on over 35 new titles. We feel we are the last big independent society publisher and have taken the mantle over from Blackwell.”

He added that Sage offered society publishers the benefit of getting the key terms that were relevant to their title high on search engine rankings: “People are saying that 75% of usage comes from online searches. We have to sell ourselves to societies on the basis of the strength of the services we provide to them and that we are a conduit to market.”

APJPH is published quarterly in association with the Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health.
The journal focuses on public health issues in Asia-Pacific.

SJPH is published eight times a year as a forum for Nordic and international public health research and policy.

Legislation in most Scandinavian countries allows researchers to carry out studies linking various populations by personal identification numbers. SJPH aims to make the research resulting from the data available to the public health community.
www.sagepub.com