Words, words, words

Meaninglessness can hardly be the aim of Archives of Public Health. This new journal wants to compile public health knowledge for action. Texts in Archives of Public Health should contribute to a better understanding of the population's health. We expect authors to take the time to think and to highlight in their manuscript the implications of the findings for public health policy, public health practice and/or public health research. Thus, each manuscript will contribute to public health knowledge, enhance the interactions between research, policy and practice and stimulate public health monitoring and the development of indicators.Archives of Public Health is not a totally new journal. The journal was initiated by the Belgian Ministry of Health in the years before the Second World War as the Belgian Archives of Social Medicine, Hygiene, Occupational Health and Forensic Medicine. Although the name changed and the official Belgian languages were no longer used by the journal, the journal continued to be supported by the Federal Ministry of Health and became, and still is, the official journal of the Belgian Association of Public Health.The choice for an open access publishing model was not evident as the model is still controversial. We are however convinced that the advantages surpass the disadvantages. One disadvantage of the open access model is related to the misunderstanding about the Article Processing Charge (APC). Some will argue that a model of pay-to-publish allows authors of bad research to buy their way in. However, APCs only apply to papers surviving the scrutiny of the review process. Another argument often raised against APCs is that a pay-to-publish model obstructs free and open exchange of scientific results. APC could limit the publishing capacity for authors, especially those from developing countries [2]. Therefore, Biomed Central provides automatic waivers for authors of countries classified by the World Bank as low-income or lower-middle-income