Advocacy in public health: roles and challenges

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Abstract
Most public health researchers aspire to have their work published in high impact journals, reasoning that this is a key measure of their work's importance and influence. Publication in these journals accords peer recognition, enhances promotion and can attract media1 and hopefully public and political attention2 to research and its implications for public health. Currently, the epidemiology journal with the highest impact factor is the American Journal of Epidemiology with 3.870. The journal you are now reading scores 1.892. In wider public health, the peak journal is the Annual Review of Public Health with 4.524.3 Sixty-three per cent of the Institute of Scientific Information's indexed journals have impact factors below or equal to one,4 meaning that in these the average paper is cited less than once in the 2 years after publication.5