Contributions of US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Officers to Public Health Reports : Making the Future Now

Public Health Reports (PHR), the official peer-reviewed journal of the Office of the US Surgeon General and the US Public Health Service (USPHS), is the oldest active public health periodical in the United States.Writing in our capacity as USPHS officers, we aspire to increase the visibility of PHR and encourage officers to contribute through highlighting their expertise and work in the journal.In this commentary, we briefly review the history of PHR in the context of the Commissioned Corps of the USPHS and summarize PHR's current standing as a wellrespected outlet for public health science and practice.While we encourage all public health professionals to contribute to the journal, our primary purpose is to advocate for and provide tools to support increased contributions by USPHS officers. PHR: A Brief HistoryIn 1798, President John Adams signed the Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen (ch 77, 1 Stat.605, enacted by the 5th Congress), which established the Marine Hospital Service.The modern era of the USPHS can be traced to 1870, when Dr John Woodward was appointed as the first US surgeon general.After a deadly yellow fever epidemic, which began in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1878 and spread northward, Congress, supported by Surgeon General Woodward, passed the National Quarantine Act (ch 202, 20 Stat.37, enacted by the 45th Congress).The act required weekly publication of US consular reports on the sanitary condition of vessels departing for the United States; this publication, which was first published as The Bulletin of the Public Health, debuted on July 13, 1878.Although publication was intermittent during the next 2 decades, by 1896, the current name, Public Health Reports, was established, and publication continues to this day. 1 Other important developments during this period include the first assignment of USPHS officers to what is now the US Coast Guard in 1879 and the creation by Congress of the USPHS Commissioned Corps as a uniformed service in 1889. 2 Although a full history of PHR is beyond the scope of this article, we wish to highlight several 20th century and contemporary contributions from PHR.During the 1918