[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 180 (Monday, September 19, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54951-54952]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-18596]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of Health


Potential Privatization of the Journal ``Environmental Health 
Perspectives;'' Request for Comment

AGENCY: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), 
National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human 
Services (DHHS).

ACTION: Request for Comment.

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SUMMARY: For several decades, NIEHS has published Environmental Health 
Perspectives (EHP), a leading biomedical publication in the field of 
environmental health science, to provide a forum for research in 
environmental health science. EHP has well fulfilled this purpose, but 
NIEHS is now considering new channels to inform scientists, clinicians, 
patients, families, and the general public about environmental health 
research findings. NIEHS is exploring web-based and other methods to 
disseminate such information and anticipates development of a new 
system to communicate important recent findings in a timely and 
efficient manner.
    NIEHS conducts ongoing review of all its research, training, and 
communications programs and has recently determined that it is now 
appropriate to consider phasing out Institute sponsorship of this 
journal. NIEHS has not reached a final decision about potential 
privatization of EHP nor has an implementation plan for carrying out 
such a decision been developed. Should such a decision be reached, it 
is our goal to implement it in a manner that will be least disruptive 
to the field and to authors, reviewers, editorial board, staff, and 
subscribers. The current request for comment poses a series of 
questions around core elements that may comprise an implementation plan 
for privatization of EHP. These elements include: (1) Feasibility of 
privatizing EHP, (2) a business plan for continuation of the journal, 
(3) a timeline and plan for transfer of responsibility, (4) an 
editorial policy plan, and (5) continued online access.

DATES: Comments must be received by October 28, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Comments should be submitted at http://www.niehs.nih.gov/external/ehp/home.htm.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background Information on EHP

    EHP's mission is to disseminate credible environmental and 
occupational health information around the world. An overarching goal 
is to raise global awareness of the connectivity between the 
environment and human health. EHP is read in nearly every country of 
the world. EHP has an impact factor of 3.93 and an Immediacy Index of 
1.20, ranking the journal second of 132 environmental sciences journals 
and fifth of 90 public, environmental, and occupational health 
journals. As a full open-access journal, EHP provides XML-formatted 
content to the digital archive Pubmed Central. EHP also has 
partnerships with Medscape and JSTOR.org (an organization that 
maintains an archive of scholarly journal) to facilitate access and 
distribution of EHP's content.
    Electronic submission and review are the norm for the 1,200 
manuscripts that EHP receives annually, and the rejection rate is about 
80%. EHP publishes all articles within 24 hours of acceptance on its 
Web site (http://

[[Page 54952]]

ehp.niehs.nih.gov/) as EHP-in-Press articles. These articles are 
completely citable using CrossRef's Digital Object Identifier system. 
The Web site is visited by approximately 150,000 unique visitors every 
month. The time-to-print after publication on the website is about 3 
months. The EHP Web site (http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/) contains all 
current issues, all archival issues, foreign language articles, and the 
Student Edition plus teacher lesson plans and has a search-by-topic 
feature.
    The journal publishes monthly issues with sections devoted to 
environmental news, environmental medicine, and children's 
environmental health. On a periodic basis, an issue may contain a mini-
monograph (a group of up to six papers that address a single topic). 
EHP also publishes one or two special topical issues each year. In 
total, this full-color journal publishes approximately 3,000 pages 
annually.
    The journal's Environews section provides balanced and objective 
analyses of topical issues. These articles take the form of long, 
investigative features (Focus articles) or brief reports (Forum 
articles). Other articles provide balanced analyses of legal, 
regulatory, public policy, and social aspects of environmental health 
(Spheres of Influence) and new discoveries or approaches in 
environmental health research, remediation, monitoring, and public 
health policy (Innovations). Science Selection articles summarize 
selected research articles appearing in the same issue, putting current 
EHP research findings into perspective. Other services include book 
reviews of important current publications, a calendar of events, 
position announcements, and updates on the latest news from the NIEHS 
grants division. EHP also publishes a highly successful monthly Student 
Edition and sponsors development of teacher lesson plans based on 
environmental news articles published within the Student Edition. These 
materials are available in print (currently, approximately 5,000 copies 
distributed) and on the EHP Web site (http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/).
    EHP's global health initiatives are ongoing on four continents 
(Africa, Asia, North America, and South America). These programs 
include providing complimentary print subscriptions to readers in 
developing countries, publishing a quarterly Chinese-language edition 
(35,000 distribution), and translating the ``In This Issue'' section of 
EHP (which encapsulates each issue's news and research content) into 
five languages: Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. EHP 
cooperates with non-English language journals for translation and 
publication of EHP news content in EHP sections within their journals. 
The journal works with the University of Iowa to provide EHP journal 
content to their eGranary Digital Library WiderNet Project. EHP and the 
Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine have an agreement to 
co-publish selected research articles both in English and Chinese. EHP 
also hosts the website for the francophone journal, Mali Medical.

Request for Comment

    The NIEHS invites public input on the issue of potential 
privatization of EHP. Please note that the NIEHS has not reached a 
final decision about potential privatization of EHP. If the Institute 
decides to move forward with privatization, then an implementation plan 
would need to be developed. This implementation plan will need to 
address several core topics listed below. The NIEHS seeks public input 
on the questions identified for each topic to facilitate reaching a 
decision on potential privatization and, if appropriate, development of 
an implementation plan. The NIEHS is interested in maintaining and 
enhancing the capacity of EHP to be a significant resource for 
researchers, clinicians, patients, family members, and the general 
public. We similarly seek to maintain and enhance EHP's reputation, 
credibility, accessibility, and value to the scientific and lay 
communities interested in environmental health and disease.
    1. Feasibility of privatizing EHP.
    Q1a. Are there likely to be private sector commercial or 
noncommercial entities interested in publishing EHP?
    Q1b. Are there any difficulties that would be created by 
transferring publication of EHP from a government agency to the private 
sector? If so, please elaborate.
    2. A business plan for continuation of the journal.
    Q2. What issues should NIEHS consider in developing an 
implementation plan for privatizing EHP?
    3. A timeline and plan for transfer of responsibility.
    Q3. Are there ways to ensure an efficient transfer of functions 
such as editorial oversight, subscriber lists, archives, and digital 
content?
    4. An editorial policy plan.
    Q4. How should the scope of EHP's coverage, from news to peer-
reviewed research, be considered in executing a potential 
privatization?
    5. Online access.
    Q5. How should EHP's current open access policy and commitments to 
provide content to public archives be addressed in a potential 
privatization?
    6. Other considerations.
    Q6. Overall, how would a privatization of EHP be an advantage or 
disadvantage to the NIEHS and to environmental health science?
    Q7. What other suggestions do you have for facilitating 
communication activities at NIEHS?

    Dated: September 8, 2005.
Samuel Wilson,
Deputy Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
[FR Doc. 05-18596 Filed 9-16-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4140-01-P