New journal fills gap in youth-engaged health promotion
Adrienne Seabrooke, a part-time instructor in the BScN program, and Rachel Roy, a McMaster graduate from Sociology and Psychology, have launched Youth Engagement in Health Promotion (YEHP).
Photo: Rachel Roy (left) and Adrienne Seabrooke (right)
Adrienne Seabrooke, a part-time instructor in the BScN program, and Rachel Roy, a McMaster graduate from Sociology and Psychology, have launched Youth Engagement in Health Promotion (YEHP). This new scholarly journal featuring original research, commentary and experiential papers is available online for free to subscribers. The second issue was just released in September 2016.
The goal of YEHP, Seabrooke says, “is to provide an international forum for those passionate about engaging youth in health promotion.” The journal is the first of its kind dealing with this subject. Topics include: Injury Prevention; Mental health promotion; Adolescent health; Preventive medicine and health promotion; Population health; Health promotion program planning, implementation and evaluation; Health disparities; Youth development; Youth-led health promotion; and Community-based health promotion, among others.
The journal founders
Seabrooke and Roy co-founded the journal in 2015.
Seabrooke graduated from McMaster University Nursing in 2006, and earned a Masters of Education from OISE at the University of Toronto in 2015. She has taught both collaborative and accelerated clinical groups at McMaster. In addition to teaching part-time in the McMaster BScN program, she works in the Emergency Room at the Strathroy Middlesex Hospital and teaches in the Compressed Time Frame program of the School of Nursing at Western University.
Roy graduated from McMaster’s program in Sociology and Psychology in 2006, from Nutritional Sciences at University of Western Ontario in 2008, and then earned a MSc Health Promotion and Population Health from Ulster University in 2010. Roy works for Hamilton Public Health Services as a Health Promotion Specialist. She was a co-tutor for McMaster School of Nursing HTH SCI 3C04 – Research Appraisal and Utilization in Evidence Informed Decision Making in 2015.
Ruth Chen is Chair of Academic Resources & Department Education Coordinator for the School of Nursing. “I am very happy that we can highlight the incredible work of our part-time instructors and former McMaster graduates,” says Chen. “Adrienne and Rachel have created a forum where ideas and critical analysis of issues in health promotion and youth engagement can be discussed. The School of Nursing is so pleased to have Adrienne as a part-time instructor. She is a valued and excellent clinical instructor.”
The journal has an editorial board and peer review team; members were chosen based on experience, education, skill set and level of interest in journal content area. “We have review team members with extensive experience in: public health, education and teaching, nursing, youth-led community programs, health promotion, medicine, epidemiology, project management, research methodology, and critical appraisal. In keeping with the principles of youth engagement we hope to promote to our readership, the editorial board includes a youth member, and a youth peer review team was established for youth-submitted manuscripts,” says Roy.
Why they started the journal
Seabrooke and Roy founded the journal because they noticed that something was missing. “As a health promotion practitioner and primary care nurse, we understood that meaningful youth engagement in health promotion was a sound strategy for prevention. However, we discovered a gapin the availability of centralized, easy-to-access literature outlining and evaluating strategies to engage youth effectively in health promotion efforts. Upon further review, we discovered that there was no youth voice present in the literature that was available to help guide strategic approaches and to validate evidence from the perspective of the target population themselves,” says Seabrooke.
Where to find the journal
The journal is available online at Youth Engagement in Health Promotion. Readers and authors are required to set up a login but it is free. They can opt to subscribe to get updates from the journal. Guidelines for authors can be found under the ‘About’ tab under ‘Submissions’.
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