The Policy Studies Organization (PSO) and Berkeley Electronic Press are pleased to announce the launch of World Medical & Health Policy, a new journal at the intersection of politics, policy, medicine, and public health.

In 2008, PSO, together with the World Medical Association, conducted a survey in Africa, Asia, and the Balkan regions which revealed a pressing need for a scholarly publication that presents policy on medical and health issues around the world.

“Our journal will provide communities with the information they need,” Paul Rich, president of PSO, said. “Six countries are already participating in a pilot program in World Medical & Health Policy that aims to increase the exchange of scientific and medical information.”

World Medical & Health Policy released its first issue on November 10th. This issue features articles on the H1N1 influenza, health system reconstruction in Iraq, tobacco control, Japanese physicians, and several issues of social responsibility.

Treating medicine as a cross-cutting function, World Medical & Health Policy offers global interdisciplinary research and analysis which it then translates into policies and practice standards.

“Launching at a time of a great debate in U.S. over the health care reform and the first influenza pandemic of the 21st Century, World Medical & Health Policy couldn’t have come at a better time to foster academic discourse around world health,” said Gordon Tibbitts, CEO of bepress.

To read the first issue of World Medical & Health Policy please visit: http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/

About the Policy Studies Organization

The Policy Studies Organization is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization with the purpose to further research and dissemination of scholarship in policy. We are a related society of the American, Midwest, Southern and International Political Sciences Associations, as well as of the International Studies Association. PSO includes more than 3600 universities and institutions in its membership as well as individuals in more than 93 countries. From its headquarters in an historic house near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., once the home of the families of President James Garfield and the labor leader Samuel Gompers, the society organizes conferences, seminars, the publication of journals and books, and an increasing Internet presence.

For more information, visit www.ipsonet.org

About Berkeley Electronic Press

Founded by professors in 1999, Berkeley Electronic Press publishes peer-reviewed electronic journals and develops software for the next generation of scholarly publishing.

The bepress journals collection, ResearchNow, redefines what scholarly journals can do today, with fast and high quality peer review at sustainable prices.

The bepress open-access institutional repository platform, Digital Commons, is the world's leading hosted IR, featuring an innovative suite of publishing and software services that empowers scholarly communities to showcase and share their works for maximum impact.

For additional information on bepress, please see: www.bepress.com