The More Things Change, One Thing Stays the Same

Pediatrics is celebrating its 77th anniversary in 2025. We are proud that over its long history, the journal has implemented innovative changes to help improve care for children and their families and to foster critical dialogue among those involved in pediatric health care. This growth is in direct response to suggestions we get from you in your role as readers and authors and as guided by our editorial board to further our mission of providing evidence-based scientific content to advance child health. This year is no exception.This year we are launching a new Health Policy section that will contain studies assessing the impact of policies developed or under consideration by local, state, or federal policymakers, by payers, or by health care systems. We hope this new section will be an exciting new venue for health services research. The studies can be quantitative, qualitative, or use mixed-methods approaches. Health policy economic analyses will also qualify for consideration. Please see the author instructions for information about how to prepare manuscripts for our new Health Policy section.We are initiating changes to our author and reviewer instructions (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/pages/author-instructions, https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/pages/reviewer-instructions) to continue to improve the use of inclusive language and appropriate use of race and ethnicity as variables in research studies. We are also updating our author and reviewer instructions to address the growing use of artificial intelligence. Among the updates is an important reminder that authors must disclose the use of artificial intelligence in drafting their work. The reviewer instructions remain clear: We stand firm against the use of artificial intelligence for conducting peer review. We appreciate the challenges of writing a manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal, and we want the submission process for Pediatrics to be straightforward for authors. We have simplified our submission process to eliminate the need for full formatting of articles in our journal's style during the initial submission. Although there are some key elements that must be included, as described in the author instructions, we want to be flexible and minimize the barriers for authors to submit their work to the journal for initial consideration.Social media is an important way to interact with Pediatrics and other AAP publications. In the months ahead, you will see all the AAP journal Facebook channels consolidate into a single streamlined channel to make it easier to interact with our content. We will also consolidate content on Instagram and X and develop a Pediatrics LinkedIn page.We are excited to welcome our new fully open-access sister journal, Pediatrics Open Science, under the editorial leadership of Dr John Patrick Co. The partnership among our journals ensures that our publisher, the AAP, meets new requirements set by research funder open-access mandates. More information about Pediatrics Open Science can be found at https://publications.aap.org/pediatricsopenscience.Since the start of Pediatrics, there have only been 5 editors in chief. Although it is important to have steady leadership, change is also important. In July 2025, Dr Lewis First will be stepping down in this role with the end of his term of service, and Dr Alex Kemper will be moving up from deputy editor to editor in chief. When Dr First became editor in chief in 2009, the editorial board had 30 members, each of whom were pediatricians. Of these members, most (70%) were male and few (13%) were underrepresented in medicine. By 2024, the editorial board expanded to 50 members, including advanced practice professionals, nurses, psychologists, trainees, and public members (including caregivers). As of 2025, the percentage of women has increased to 54%, and the percentage of individuals underrepresented in medicine has increased to 36%.During the 17 years that Dr First has overseen the journal and editorial board, the range of sections in Pediatrics has increased to include Advocacy Case Reports; Diagnostic Dilemmas and Clinical Reasoning; Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice; Ethics Rounds; Family Partnerships; Pediatric Perspectives; Quality Reports; Research Briefs; State-of-the-Art Reviews; features from the Section on Pediatric Trainees and the Council on Medical Student Educators in Pediatrics; and articles on pediatric medical history and global health.Over the past 17 years, we have worked to increase our transparency. We have opened our weekly manuscript decision-making conference calls to include authors, reviewers, trainees, and anyone else interested in not only learning how we evaluate manuscripts for publication but becoming participants in the process. If you are interested in joining a weekly manuscript decision-making call, contact Kate Larson, senior managing editor, at klarson@aap.org.Since 2009, we have sped up our peer-review process and can now also publish an article online within 6 weeks of acceptance. In certain critical cases, we can prepublish accepted articles within 5 days of acceptance, which was especially helpful for making challenging clinical decisions during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We promote articles through our blogs written by editorial board members, trainees, and family advocates. Selected articles are now discussed on the AAP podcast, "Pediatrics on Call," available at https://www.aap.org/en/pages/podcast/. We invite authors of selected articles to submit 4-minute video abstracts to put their work into perspective. There are now several hundred of these abstracts available at https://video.publications.aap.org/pedsvideoabstracts. These videos are also excellent educational tools.We want to express our gratitude to our editorial board members, authors, reviewers, and to our readers, especially over the period during which Dr First has served as editor in chief. Throughout periods of change, our commitment remains true and steadfast to ensure improvement in the health and well-being of all children and their families. While the leadership is changing, our commitment to excellence is not.