Journal of behavioral medicine high impact updates: an introduction to the special series

Since its founding in 1978 under the leadership of W. Doyle Gentry, the Journal of Behavioral Medicine (JBM) has become a prominent, interdisciplinary platform for communicating scientific advances within the broad domain of behavioral medicine. The founding of the journal, not coincidentally, followed the 1977 Yale Conference on Behavioral Medicine (Schwartz & Weiss, 1978) and the 1978 founding of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. The collective hope for JBM at the time of its inception was that it would serve as a hub for scientific communication spanning both the behavioral and biomedical sciences with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary linkages between the two. Nearly 50 years later it seems safe to say, JBM has achieved that mission as it has progressed to the level of a top tier journal receiving well over 700 submissions annually from around the globe and publishing approximately 100 peer reviewed articles each year. In fact, the 5-year impact factor for the Journal of Behavioral Medicine was 3.1 in 2023. …