Allan Hill, Andelot Professor of Demography, has been named editor of Health Transition Review (HTR), semiannual journal devoted to the cultural, behavioral, and social issues affecting health. Originally established in 1990 with Professor Jack Caldwell of the Australian National University in Canberra as its editor, the periodical will now be published by the School’s Department of Population and International Health. Although the move was prompted by Caldwell’s retirement, the editors always intended to move the journal periodically to foster its international character, according to Hill. The decision to make Harvard its new home is partly because of the publication’s long-standing ties to the university: both Hill and Arthur Kleinman, chair of the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine, have been associate editors since the first issue.

The philosophy of HTR is to make the study of health a comparison between the historical and the contemporary, drawing concrete lessons from health strategies that have--and have not--worked around the world. According to Hill, the goal is not to be simply an academic journal: "We want to avoid the flat regurgitation of information and instead closely examine approaches that have been effective in promoting global health, using them to devise potent mechanisms of change." It is this underlying idea of creating strategies to enact change that Hill sees as making HTR truly a "public health—minded publication."

In addition to its regular issues, HTR also publishes supplements which take an in-depth look at particular health topics; some recent examples include the Third World AIDS epidemic, vulnerability to HIV, and the sociodemographics of HIV in Africa. Because many of the subjects covered by the journal focus on the developing world, Hill plans to continue the journal’s tradition of complimentary subscriptions for people in Third World countries. Hill also intends to supplement the paper version with a new Web site, which will include chat rooms and e-mail discussion groups and be linked with the recently launched Global Reproductive Health Forum@Harvard. Hill says the Web site should encourage discussion and correspondence among the HTR’s readership and make the publication more accessible to Internet users.

-- Alexandra Benis