The First Year of Hypertension

were from the annual meeting of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research.During the first 7 months, 76 manuscripts (exclusive of those from the meeting) were received; during the next 6 months, an additional 95 were submitted.Twenty-two of the 25 papers from the annual meeting were accepted for publication after review by the Publications Committee of the Council.These made up the special May/June issue, with Dr. Michael Brody as Guest Editor.Of the 171 regularly submitted manuscripts, 64 were published in the other five issues of the journal.It should be noted that this does not mean a rejection rate of 63%, because not all the manuscripts sent back to the authors for revisions had been returned by June 30, 1979.Approval for publication of Hypertension by the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association carried with it several stipulations: the journal must be of high quality, provide critical peer review of submitted articles, publish both laboratory and clinical investigations, be international, become self-supporting, and submit to a program review in 3 years to determine its value to the field and its future viability.The Editors have followed those guidelines, as a brief review of the first year's performance will indicate.The quality of any journal rests primarily on the scientific excellence of the research reports submitted for consideration and the critiques submitted by reviewers, because these not only provide instructions to the Editors but also helpful criticisms for authors.Although the first 7 months were rather lean in the number of manuscripts submitted, the number increased in the next 6 months, and we are confident that the stipulation of scientific excellence was met during the first year.Hypertension has provided critical peer review.Practically all manuscripts that were not rejected were returned to the authors for revision based on reviewers' critiques.Peer review is accepted by the scientific community as an important responsibility, and the Editorial Board and other reviewers have responded nobly to our requests for review.The journal has been evenhanded in publishing reports of laboratory and clinical investigations.Setting aside the special issue that contained primarily laboratory research, which is the traditional focus for that annual meeting, readers will find that Hypertension published 32 reports of laboratory studies and 32 of clinical studies.The journal is international in that it has received 38 manuscripts from countries other than in North America.