An Interview with Adam Burke, Editor-in-Chief, The American Acupuncturist

QUR: Recently The American Acupuncturist has been indexed by CINAHL. What is CINAHL for those not familiar with it?

AB: Cumulated Index To Nursing And Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) is a highly respected database that covers nursing, allied health professions, and health sciences librarianship literature from 1982 to the present. One important area of coverage is alternative and comprehensive medicine. The database indexes approximately 2,000 journals with close to 6,000,000 citations. Certain select full text material includes journal articles, patient education materials, accreditation records, government publications, clinical innovations, research instruments and more.

QUR: What makes indexing important for a journal such as The American Acupuncturist?

AB: Databases such as CINAHL, PUBMED, and the Cochrane Reviews are used by researchers, clinicians, students, and the public to access information on a specific topic, such as TEAM. There are many types of area-oriented databases of this type, such as databases for psychology, chemistry, and museum studies. CINAHL is one of the premier health profession databases. Getting The American Acupuncturist into CINAHL is an important first step in getting our message out to a broader audience of academicians, clinicians, and students (see “Why it’s important for us to write” – link to the AA editors article).

QUR: Is there anything else you wish to share with the AAAOM membership?

AB: CINAHL is the first database to accept our journal. This is a competitive process, as there are many journals on the market (in China there are over 100 TEAM journals for example). It is an honor to be accepted by CINAHL. We are also working on getting listing in PUBMED and other major databases. This increases exposure and the probability of individuals finding our journal and its articles. This is also very important for our authors. We want their important work to reach as many readers, innovators, and decision-makers as possible. This is another important step in raising the journal to a position of greater visibility and social impact.