Announcements

Name: Prof. Dr. Laura L. Hayman
Affiliation: Department of Nursing, Manning College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA
Interests: child and adolescent health; prevention of obesity and cardiovascular disease; social and behavioral determinants of health

Prof. Dr. Laura L. Hayman, PHD, RN, FPCNA, FAHA, FAAN, is Professor of Nursing at UMass Boston. She is also an Adjunct Professor, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, UMass Medical School. |Prof. Dr. Hayman earned her BSN, MSN, and PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. Her program of research and scholarship has focused on primary prevention of obesity and risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in children, adolescents and families from diverse populations. Her recently completed and current interdisciplinary projects combine clinical and community-based approaches designed to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors and reduce risk for obesity and cardiometabolic conditions in children, adolescents, and families, and community-based research designed to reduce health disparities and promote health equity.

Prof. Dr. Laura L. Hayman serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, MCN: The American Journal of Maternal-Child Nursing, and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. She is a past president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) and a member of the Society’s Health Policy Committee. Prof. Dr. Hayman has also served in leadership roles in the American Heart Association (AHA), and currently, she serves on the AHA’s International Committee. She holds fellowships from the SBM, AHA, the American Academy of Nursing, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and PCNA.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Laura L. Hayman, who shared with us her vision for the journal and her views on the field:

Career Origins and Research Philosophy

1. You have dedicated much of your career to the “life course” approach to cardiovascular health. What was the “aha!” moment in your early career that convinced you that adult heart health is truly rooted in childhood and adolescence?
Yes, I have focused much on the life course approach to cardiovascular health, and how all this started in my young academic life at the University of Pennsylvania. We had a longitudinal twin family study where we followed school-aged children for 10 years through two phases of adolescence. Of course, they have parents. Children are part of families, and you realize that even though we were focusing on the cardiovascular health of those school-aged children and adolescents, their parents have some need for health promotion and cardiovascular risk reduction. So it is a family-based approach, and we enjoyed that very much.
I am a children and adolescents person by initial education and training. I am a pediatric person. That has always been my population. Then you extend it because you realize children are part of families, and if you want to impact children with childhood obesity or other issues, you have to bring in the families, the parents, and the guardians. It is all important.

2. Looking back over the last three decades, what is the most significant shift you have witnessed in how we perceive and treat adolescent health?
I think we see a shift in terms of emphasis from healthcare providers, educational systems, and researchers focusing more on holistic adolescent health. It is not just physical, but psychological, mental, and emotional health, which is really important because it is a critical transitional period. So, we see more emphasis on holistic health, which is very good.

Editorial Leadership

1. As the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Adolescents, what was the primary gap in the existing literature that you felt this specific journal needed to fill?
Thank you for that question. I think there was not as much emphasis on adolescent health in the literature, and to have a journal that is focused on adolescent health is really important. There are articles scattered throughout various journals, but when you go to Adolescents, the articles there all focus on different aspects of adolescents. I think it filled an important gap.

2. When you are reviewing a submission, what is the one thing that immediately makes a paper stand out to you as “must publish” material?
Very good question. First of all, we value and appreciate our reviewers. What is important, and I do a lot of mentoring right now, chairing several PhD dissertations, is looking at the major stated purpose. What are the questions being asked? Are they relevant, timely, and well-framed? Does the literature review support the need for the study? It is about the logical flow and whether the methods are designed to address the major aims. Then I always look to see if they acknowledge the strengths and limitations. Authors have to acknowledge limitations and give directions for future research. It is a holistic process. When you have done things like this for so long, you know what to look for.
Every article has a slightly different focus. Not every article is going to address holistic adolescent health. You can have an excellent manuscript that focuses specifically on depression in adolescence and the factors influencing that, or the social determinants of health. But I am saying there is more emphasis on holistic adolescent health overall in the field, rather than just on the physical aspects.

Open Access and Information Equity

1. You have been a vocal proponent of open access. In your view, how does removing paywalls specifically benefit the field of adolescent health, where practitioners (like school nurses or social workers) may not have institutional library access?
It is very interesting the way you frame removing paywalls, which is absolutely crucial right now. Financial factors are a significant issue, and that applies globally. We are talking about school nurses, social workers, or even academics whose budgets are quite constrained right now. Providing opportunities for people to publish or access materials without a four-figure fee certainly helps.
We have a new movement regarding providing resources. I have not been as involved with undergraduates recently as I am with doctoral students, but the resources and books are being made more available. There is a special term for it where students can access the materials without having to buy the books, which is a major benefit.

Future Vision and Academic Advice

1. If you were starting your research career today in 2026, which specific “unsolved mystery” in adolescent behavioral health would you choose to investigate?

As we know, adolescence is a really important and critical transitional phase. I am still interested in overall health and certainly cardiovascular health because cardiovascular disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality globally. I would look into developing innovative ways to promote holistic health in adolescence, which would involve not just the adolescent but their family, guardians, and the school. With overweight and obesity being a major global issue, we have learned that you have to look at factors that operate beyond the level of the individual. You might have an adolescent who is overweight living in an impoverished neighborhood without access to healthy foods or safe places for physical activity. Due to limited resources, their dietary patterns may not be optimal. I would focus my research there.

2. You have done significant work with the American Heart Association on social determinants of health. What is one policy change you believe would have the greatest impact on adolescent cardiometabolic health globally?
That is a very good question, and it is multifaceted. You mentioned the social determinants of health, which I actually teach to PhD students. The American Heart Association has put emphasis on how social determinants impact health across the life course. We conduct research that provides the evidence to hopefully guide and inform policies that will improve health, not just for adolescents but across the entire life course. The American Heart Association champions papers with individuals from different disciplines, which are pretty widely disseminated. I think we all realize that all roads converge on policy. Regarding cardiometabolic health, there are big proponents of exercise and food as medicine. We started with exercise as a prescription for health, and now food is medicine, which is very important.
I do not know if you are familiar, but the Life’s Essential Eight framework put out by the American Heart Association has been widely disseminated and applied across the life course globally. It focuses on health factors and health behaviors, providing crucial guidance. The health behaviors listed are physical activity, nutrition, smoke-free lifestyles, and now there is more attention on sleep. It used to be Life’s Essential Seven, and now it is Life's Essential Eight. It also focuses on health factors like blood pressure and lipids. It is a very important document that you can find easily on PubMed.

3. Beyond the citations and the fellowships, what do you hope is the lasting impact of your work on the lives of the families and adolescents you have studied?
We hope that in some small way we have improved the health and welfare of our young people, not just through research, but through programmatic initiatives. I am very involved with the Society of Behavioral Medicine as well. Through all that work, it is a collective effort. It is never just one person; it truly takes a village.

5-Year Anniversary Reflections

1. Reflecting on the five years since you launched Adolescents in 2021, what has been the most surprising trend or topic that emerged in the submissions that you did not originally anticipate?
Those five years went very quickly. I would say it has been surprising to see the quality and quantity of the manuscripts being submitted and published, alongside their truly global distribution. Manuscripts come from the States and from most of the six World Health Organization regions. While some people are very focused on metrics, it is simply good to see the citations and the broad dissemination of the work increase.

2. A journal’s identity often matures over its first half-decade. How has the mission of the journal evolved from the inaugural issue to where it stands today in 2026?

The mission has broadened in that we focus more holistically on contemporary issues. Over the past five years, certain issues have emerged or have been given more emphasis, like substance abuse, mental health, and the impact of COVID 19 on young people. I go back to the word holistic, but we are focusing more on contemporary issues that affect adolescent health and the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. We are seeing more manuscripts on that topic, which is excellent because development is not static; it is a dynamic process.

3. As you look toward the next five years, what is the one “moonshot” goal you have for the journal to further influence global adolescent health policy?
I hope that the journal will be sustained and that its reach will become even broader over the next five years. We hope for the continuing optimal development of the journal. I know some journals emerge and then do not survive, so we really want to see Adolescents sustained. We want to see an increase in quality and quantity, ensuring that the published articles continue to be broadly disseminated and utilized meaningfully, especially in the policy arena. Then, we will eventually have to socialize the next editor.