EDITORIAL

This is the 18^th year of uninterrupted publication of RBCDH. These years were marked by difficulties - especially concerning the necessary financial support - but also by conquests.

Besides the fact that we continue receiving contributions from researchers working at many Brazilian institutions, in this issue we present an interesting paper on Cape Verdean women's fertility.

The Journal is indexed in several databases, such as LILACS, CLASE, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts: Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, as well as in the portal of FSP-USP (the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo) and in PEPSIC.

We have high concepts in many areas of the CAPES System, like Psychology, Physiotherapy, Education, Collective Health, Medicine, Nursing.

In an effort to reduce endogeny and increase our penetration in Brazil and in other countries, we have strived, since 2007, to extend the set of specialist researchers of whom we have requested to evaluate the papers submitted to the Journal. Therefore, if 3 or 4 years ago we had 80% of the referees in the state of São Paulo (the majority from USP), now we have 75% of the opinions provided by researchers from other states and nations. Interestingly, this effort is making RBCDH become better known than ever: we have been receiving contributions from authors who did not use to choose the Journal to publish their productions. This trend will be visible from issue 18-2 onwards, which is in the final phase of graphical production.

Issue 18-2 is almost ready; in addition, we have the equivalent to two issues undergoing the evaluation process. And all this has been achieved without losing sight of the objective of ensuring and improving the quality of RBCDH: from 5% of rejected papers, we are now rejecting approximately 25% of the received contributions.

Thanks to the support of the University of São Paulo and of the Dean of the School of Public Health, we predict that we will have some financial tranquility in 2008, and we hope to better control this chronic problem in the future. It is worth reminding that RBCDH continues to be electronically available at PEPSIC.

Besides the interesting paper from Cape Verde, we have a paper that approaches a theme that has not been deeply studied by us, but which is becoming increasingly important: mortality among Brazilian women in the climacteric. Another paper reports on the experience of the city of Santo André in the creation and operation of a community-based mental health care network.

As usual, we have 5 papers on different questions regarding Child Health: the acquisition of functional abilities in an early stimulation program; health care of Kaiowá and Guarani children; perceptions of mothers of children with visual impairment; the participation of mothers and children in the determination of daily routine activities; the social representations of oral health of mothers who attend a public health service.

Still among the original research articles, we have an interesting contribution about the correlation between temporomandibular dysfunction, cervical posture and quality of life.

Three review articles were also included in issue 18-1. The first one deals with the characterization of research contexts from the standpoint of Environmental Psychology; the second approaches the advances in assisted reproduction, a theme that has been receiving much attention nowadays. The third article discusses the concept of programming, according to which diseases like Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity, among others, could be related to inadequate gestational development.

The emphasis of the papers continues to be the human being's growth and development, with contributions from Anthropology, Psychology, Physiotherapy, and from Collective Oral Health. We notice there has been an increasing participation of Maternal and Child Health and of Women's Health, in medical, anthropological, psychological, demographic and public health approaches.

Several contributions approached different aspects: a Mental Health care network, the perception of mothers of visually impaired children, mothers' representations of oral health, the acquisition of functional abilities in early stimulation programs, all of them bringing results of research studies conducted at the health services.

Thus, we have greater balance between contributions from the social sciences and biological sciences, and also, the permanence of our main characteristic - "interdisciplinarity in action".

Arnaldo A F Siqueira
Editor