Greetings. What can we say about the year 2020? I looked back on my column from January and noted the excitement we had regarding the special activities planned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention (JCRP). We did successfully deliver, as planned, the 3-part series of Invited Commentaries to overview where we have been (the past), where we are (the present), and a glimpse of where we are heading (the future) in each of the 3 principle areas of focus for JCRP: Cardiac Rehabilitation, Pulmonary Rehabilitation, and Prevention. However, further plans for in-person celebrations at the annual meeting of American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Annual Meeting were thwarted as our world faced the COVID-19 pandemic. So, like many others, JCRP had to cancel and/or modify how we do things, and continually adapt as new information and circumstances dictated.
We increased our editorial staff this past year, adding a new Associate Editor, Dr Theresa M. Beckie, and a new Digital Media Editor, Dr Brittany Overstreet. These changes helped us both improve our editorial review process and our outreach efforts to promote JCRP publications. The results of these changes are noted by improvements in manuscript turnaround time; the average time from the author submission of a manuscript to JCRP to the first decision provided to authors was 29 days in 2018 and is now 17 days in 2020. Also, our Twitter and Facebook accounts have seen a notable rise in both new followers and profile or page visits. We also have started having authors submit a one-page Infographic or Visual Abstract which is much better for these types of digital communications. To date, JCRP is on pace for a record number of submissions and the overall quality of the submissions is noticeably better. Our acceptance rate, which 10 years ago was ~40% is now <20%. Speaking of quality submissions, our most highly cited papers in 2018 and 2019 were two Statements: home-based cardiac rehabilitation1 and progressing the exercise prescription2; three Invited Reviews: pulmonary hypertension,3 atrial fibrillation,4 and peripheral artery disease;5 and two Original Investigations: anxiety and depression6 and breast cancer patients in cardiac rehabilitation.7 I encourage you to check out these high performing articles and the many others in these JCRP issues.
Even though there were some challenges in 2020, which tempered our 40th anniversary celebrations, the Journal had a productive year. I thank all the members of our JCRP team and all of the contributors to the Journal in 2020. I think we are all looking forward, with hope, for a healthier, less complicated 2021.
Lenny Kaminsky, PhD, FAACVPR, FACSM, FAHA
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention
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