Editors
Editor-in-Chief: | Randy Wykoff, East Tennessee State University |
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Senior Associate Editor: | Erin Haynes, DrPH, MS, University of Kentucky | Director of Knowledge Management: | Robert M. Shapiro, MALS, PhD, South East Area Health Education Center Medical Library |
Editor of Media Reviews and Reports: | Jennifer Mallow, RN, FNP-BC, PhD, West Virginia University School of Nursing |
Managing Editor: | Rachel E. Dixon, MPhil |
A Love Rooted Deep in the Appalachian Mountains:
One Part of the Legacy of Doug Scutchfield

San Diego State University
First GSPH Graduation, May 1982
I lost a great friend on Monday, and public health lost a great champion.
I met Doug Scutchfield in 1981 when I was a student coming into the first class of the new Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University. I didn’t know at the time that ours would be a lifelong friendship on both a personal and a professional level.
He was one of the most important forces in my professional life, as he was to myriad students in both San Diego and Kentucky. We spent almost 20 years working as the editorial team—along with Editor-in-Chief Kevin Patrick—of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and when he contacted me 5 years ago to see if I’d be interested in starting a new journal with him, I jumped at the chance.
We were both products of the Appalachian Mountains—he was born in Kentucky; I was born in central Pennsylvania—and wanted our last career adventure to be in service of the health of the people in those mountain communities. We worked for over a year developing the proposal and securing funding for this new journal.
Doug spent hours thinking through how best to set a firm foundation for the journal, choosing the finest representatives from the universities in the 13-state Appalachian region, and also focusing on the importance of those outside the typical academic settings, incorporating people from a wide variety of interests: the arts, religion, hospitals, foundations, wellness centers, community organizations, rural health, community and economic development, social theory, racial justice, nonprofits, and advocates for the health of Appalachia.
He pulled together an outstanding editorial board and added an equally impressive advisory board. Under the guidance of these leaders, he created the underpinning for what would become the Journal of Appalachian Health.
His work paid off in ways that we could not imagine at the time. Now in our fourth year of publication, we recently applied for inclusion in PubMed Central and are in the final stages of that process. It was Doug’s foresight that allowed for our success on our first application. He had given us the excellence we needed to establish the journal as one worthy to be included in the NIH/NLM database.
For a lifetime of friendship, mentorship, and just plain old common sense, I thank him. As he always said: “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your job is to drain the swamp.”
For all those swamps you drained, Doug, the public health world applauds you.
Rest in peace, and “God love ya.”
˜ Charlotte Seidman
The Journal of Appalachian Health is pleased to announce the appointment of our new
Editor-in-Chief
Randy Wykoff, MD, MPH&TM

Founding Dean, College of Public Health Professor
Health Services Management and Policy
East Tennessee State University
For a full appreciation of what Dr. Wykoff brings to the Journal, visit his website.
The overall objective of the Journal of Appalachian Health (JAH) is to improve the health status of the population of Appalachia through the rapid dissemination of knowledge of their health problems and evidence-based solutions to them. JAH will provide actionable knowledge through an online, open access, easily accessible peer-reviewed process focused specifically on Appalachia. JAH is available without charge to authors or readers, including those in the region who can and will use it in their work, whether in a healthcare or a non-healthcare field that has the potential for modification of factors that contribute to poor health.
The Journal of Appalachian Health is a Gold Open Access (Gold OA) journal, published under the Creative Commons (CC) Attribution license CC BY 4.0 International, which means that all users are free to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format; and can remix, transform, and build on the material for any purpose. This CC license requires that you provide attribution by giving appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if any changes have been made.
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Current Issue: Volume 4, Issue 3 (2022)
Research Articles
Differences in Distress Between Rural and Non-rural Appalachian Breast Cancer Patient / Caregiver Dyads During the First Year of Treatment
Jordan Tasman, Callie D. McAdams, Jillian Lloyd, Ashton J. Brooks, and Patricia Nola Eugene Roberson
The relationship between psychosocial factors, self-care, and blood sugar in an Appalachian population
Brittany L. Smalls, Md. Tofial Azam, Madeline Dunfee, Philip M. Westgate, Susan C. Westneat, and Nancy Schoenberg
Association between low health literacy and adverse health behaviors in North Carolina, 2016
Manan Roy, Adam Hege, and Erin D. Bouldin
Evaluating the Association Between Depressive Symptoms and Glycemic Control Among Residents of Rural Appalachia
Brittany L. Smalls, Adebola Adegboyega, Ellen Combs, Eli W. Travis, Felipe De La Barra, Lovoria B. Williams, and Nancy Schoenberg
Over the Hills and Through the Hollers: How One Program is Assisting Residents of Appalachian with Opioid Use Recovery
Aubrey E. Jones, Jayme E. Walters, and Aaron R. Brown
Review and Special Articles
Providers’ Stigmas and the Effects on Patients with Opioid Use Disorder: A Scoping Review
Peyton Skaggs, Sarah Beth Bell, F. Douglas Scutchfield MD, and Lauren E. Robinson
Media Reviews and Reports
Review of Storytelling in Queer Appalachia: Imagining the Unspeakable Other
Sandra L. Cotton DNP, RN, ANP-BC, FNAP; Laurie A. Theeke PhD; and James Messer
Notes from the Field
Connections Network: Harnessing the Collective Influence of Grassroots Leaders to Address Health-Related Problems in Hawkins and Hancock County, TN
Dr. Jodi L. Southerland, Teresa Buttry, Connie Johnson, Sheldon Livesay, Lisa Nichols, and Priscilla Rogers
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