Greetings. As Editor-in-Chief of JCRP, I was invited to participate in the Second Global Rehabilitation 2030 Meeting, hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) that took place in the Executive Board Room of the WHO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. I was also invited to stay for a follow-up meeting to initiate "a process of developing a health policy and systems research agenda for rehabilitation." Larry Hamm attended the launch meeting of WHO's Rehabilitation 2030 initiative in 2017 and provided an excellent summary in JCRP.1 I have agreed to co-author a summary of this year's meeting with other journal editors who attended, which will be co-published in an upcoming issue. However, I think it is worthwhile to share a few key points from the meeting now. One is the need for action related to the growing worldwide burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which are responsible for 71% of all deaths globally.2 The need for rehabilitation is clear and thus is a major point of emphasis, which is especially important for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases as they are the 1st and 3rd leading causes of death, respectively. Since these are 2 of the key focus areas of JCRP and prevention of NCDs is also critical, JCRP can serve as a major vehicle to disseminate research findings on these topics. The second point to mention is that WHO recommends that rehabilitation professionals from different disciplines should unify with a common identity, that being to promote rehabilitation as a health strategy with the objective of optimizing functioning.3 This aligns well with the work of AACVPR professionals as improved function is clearly a major objective of both cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs.
September brings the AACVPR annual meeting, to be held this year on the 18th-21st in Portland, Oregon. Our annual JCRP Editors and Editorial Board meetings take place there. I welcome your comments about JCRP and any feedback or recommendations you have related to the Journal. You can communicate those directly to us at mailto:[email protected] or by contacting any of the Editors or Editorial Board members (https://journals.lww.com/jcrjournal/Pages/editorialboard.aspx). Or, if you are attending the annual meeting, it would be great to have a conversation there.
One of the highlights you will find in the 5th issue of Volume 39 is the Invited Commentary by Arena et al. The authors provide an overview of the TotalCardiology Research Network (TCRN) which is an initiative to provide high-quality clinical research from an outpatient-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program. The Commentary overviews the evolvement of their efforts, a summary of their research publications and abstracts, and their inaugural research retreat. This model, with some variations, could be replicated by other CR programs which would allow for meaningful advances in the CR evidence-base and improvements in CR patient outcomes. Also in this issue are three reviews: one by Dal Lago et al on exercise training of patients with heart failure; another by Du et al on exercise training of patients with congenital heart disease; and the third by Steinhaus et al, which focuses on exercise interventions of patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. This issue also contains a number of excellent Original Investigations and Brief Reports related to both cardiac rehabilitation and pulmonary rehabilitation.
I continue to ask for your assistance in sharing the information from this issue with your colleagues and collaborators, particularly via your social media outlets. I know the authors of these reviews and studies would be most grateful for your assistance in helping disseminate their research. Also, patients can benefit from these contributions which are advancing the evidence base of both cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs.
I hope you find the information provided in this issue to be useful in your work with patients in your rehabilitative programs, your research, or both.
Lenny Kaminsky, PhD, FAACVPR, FACSM, FAHA
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention
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