Editor-in-Chief: Journal of Public Health Dentistry (JPHD)

Position Overview

The Journal of Public Health Dentistry seeks an outstanding scholar and leader to serve as its next Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief provides the intellectual and editorial leadership necessary to maintain and advance JPHD as a premier peer-reviewed journal in dental public health, population oral health, health policy, health services research, and related fields. Journal issues are published quarterly, each with roughly 12-15 articles. Special issues are published approximately annually, which require general oversight of guest editors. 

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for setting the journal’s editorial vision, ensuring scientific quality and integrity, overseeing peer review and editorial decision-making, and working collaboratively with the publisher, editorial consultants, and sponsoring organization to strengthen the journal’s impact, visibility, and relevance in a rapidly evolving scholarly publishing environment.

Key Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief will:

• Provide strategic leadership for the journal’s editorial direction, scope, and priorities.
• Uphold the highest standards of scientific rigor, ethics, transparency, and editorial independence.
• Oversee the peer review process and make final decisions on submitted manuscripts in a fair, timely, and consistent manner.
• Ensure that journal content reflects important and emerging issues in dental public health, including research, policy, practice, education, and implementation.
• Promote diversity of topics, methods, disciplines, perspectives, authorship, and reviewer participation.
• Work closely with the publisher and sponsoring organization (AAPHD) on journal operations, production workflows, performance metrics, special issues, and strategic initiatives.
• Monitor journal performance, including submission trends, review times, acceptance rates, citation impact, readership, and author experience.
• Represent the journal publicly at professional meetings and within academic, research, and practice communities.
• Encourage high-quality submissions and cultivate the journal’s reputation nationally and internationally.
• Address conflicts of interest, publication ethics matters, and other editorial concerns in accordance with accepted publishing standards and journal policies.
• Stay up to date with key editorial resources, including COPE, ICJME, WAME, AADEJ, and SSP.
• Participate as a non-voting member of the AAPHD Board of Directors and provide a report at AAPHD’s annual business meeting. 

Required Qualifications

Candidates should have:

• An established record of scholarly achievement in dental public health, public health, oral epidemiology, health policy, health services research, implementation science, or a closely related field.
• A strong record of peer-reviewed publication and demonstrated familiarity with scientific writing, peer review, and editorial standards.
• A national or international reputation in a field relevant to the journal’s mission.
• Demonstrated leadership, sound judgment, and the ability to manage complex editorial decisions with fairness and professionalism.
• A strong commitment to scientific integrity, ethical publishing practices, and editorial independence.
• Excellent communication, organizational, and collaborative skills.
• The capacity to devote sufficient time and attention to the role.
• Active membership in AAPHD.

Preferred Qualifications

Preference may be given to candidates with:

• Prior editorial experience, such as service as an editor, associate editor, editorial board member, or comparable leadership role in scholarly publishing.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary or international scholarly collaborations.
• Familiarity with contemporary publishing issues, including open science, reporting standards, research transparency, equity in publishing, and digital dissemination.
• Experience mentoring early-career scholars, reviewers, or editorial team members.
• A clear vision for advancing the relevance, reach, and impact of JPHD.

Time Commitment and Term

The Editor-in-Chief role requires a sustained professional commitment, and is a part-time role that requires approximately 20% FTE. The successful candidate will be expected to devote regular time to manuscript oversight, editorial correspondence, strategic planning, and collaboration with the publisher and editorial consultants.

The term of appointment will begin in fall 2026 and will include a transition period with the previous EIC.

Salary range: $20,000-$30,000, commensurate with experience 

Leadership Expectations

The next Editor-in-Chief should bring:

• A vision for the future of scholarly publishing in dental public health.
• A commitment to timely, constructive, and fair editorial processes.
• A collaborative leadership style that supports authors, reviewers, editors, and board members.
• An appreciation for the journal’s history and mission, along with the ability to guide innovation and growth.