It’s time for us to say farewell! Two new co-editors-in-chief, Marco Aurelio De Anselmo Peres and José Leopoldo Ferreira Antunes will start their term at the beginning of July, and we will make our graceful exit shortly after, along with the Sydney-based editorial team of Katherine McLeod, Elsina Meyer, Tania Janusic and Marion Carey, to whom we owe so much. We have had a wonderful experience serving as editors of the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE), especially because of the relationships we developed with readers, authors, reviewers, our editorial team, our editorial board members, our publishers, Oxford University Press, and the council of the International Epidemiological Association. We have been members of an unusual ‘community of scholars’ that has exhibited a fine blend of volunteerism, humane concern, and jealous guardianship of epidemiology and those who espouse it, set within a strong commitment to finding and endorsing ways to improve health and flourishing in the best traditions of public health. Highlights of the last three years from our point of view include the growth in submissions (almost 2500 papers came our way in 2025), the geographic spread of submissions and the variety of topics, and the many thoughtful papers we received that examined new and re-emerging public health problems. We published a wealth of strong papers on COVID-19, including a full supplement on the extraordinary experience of Brazil during the epidemic 1, an investigation of reasons for inequities in vaccination coverage in Africa 2, and the reflections of a senior epidemiologist who chaired the national commission of inquiry into COVID in New Zealand 3. We welcome the enduring popularity of the Cohort and Data Resource Profiles. Publications included a celebration of the 40th birthday of the Pelotas Birth Cohort 4. Papers published in Education Corner scored very highly in the read and download counts, and we gratefully acknowledge the work of the small group of Editors who stewarded this invaluable section of the journal. Each era has its distinctive experiences, high and low, and advances in information technology and publication have special relevance for the dissemination of scientific discovery. Moving from print versions to online-only versions of the Journal reflect these advances. Some will miss the carefully curated paper volumes that landed with a thump in the post. Others celebrate the efficiency of digital issues that fill as submissions are accepted, and then with one push of the publish button are available, instantaneously, worldwide. Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a major force in the creation, review and dissemination of research. In February this year, we published a paper, ‘Why can’t epidemiology be automated (yet)?’ 5 The authors argued that the utility of AI is frequently under-estimated by epidemiologists, and rapid advances challenge old assumptions about the limits of the technology. Also, we should avoid blame-shifting. ‘We live in an era’, write Bann et al. ‘that incentivizes scientists to produce masses of papers of questionable quality…this is a human, not an AI, problem’. How the bots will shape epidemiology in the future is unclear. However, as a tool to rapidly assemble and analyse massive datasets, the technology will at the very least change our approach to ‘big data’. The Journal has functioned because of a strong motivational base of volunteerism. Reviewers, editors and authors have not been paid for their contributions. On occasions the contributions of these members of our ‘community’ to reviewing and commenting on submissions have exceeded the quality and length of the papers they were asked to assess! Poor geopolitical health at present threatens international harmony, but instruments such as the IJE can serve as antidotes. By helping maintain the fellowship of epidemiologists across the globe, strengthening their resolve and humane concern, and growing their professional capacities, the IJE promotes connection. It serves as a bridge for the traffic of new knowledge to cross. In this way, it can foster human flourishing and help sustain this beautiful planet. We wish the Journal and our successors all the very best as they move into an exciting future. None declared. None declared. AI was not used in the preparation of this editorial.
Leeder et al. (Fri,) studied this question.