LAUSR

Happy New Year to all of our Journal of Gerontological Social Work readers. 2017 promises to be an interesting year with significant leadership changes in the United States, European and other nations. Geopolitics, climate change, wars and refugee crises, social and economic disparities, and hosts of other issues are garnering public attention. And – the world continues to see growth in the size of the older adult population. That trend is fairly steady-state. These intersecting issues mean that there is much to understand, know, and discuss related to social work with older adults and aging populations. In 2017, we would like to hear from you – our readers – to help us put the fastmoving changes we see in our day-to-day professional lives into context. Therefore, we invite you to submit letters to the editor responding to manuscripts or discussing key issues you believe our authors and readers should respond to. We also invite submissions of commentaries on research, practice, and policy issues you believe are important to our readers. Commentaries are distinguished from theoretical or conceptual pieces or policy analyses (which we have always encouraged for submission, along with empirical research articles) in that they based primarily on an author’s idea or perspective. They are descriptive with an aim of bringing perspective on important issues to the field. If you have an idea for a commentary, we encourage you to email myself or our Managing Editor, Dr. Marla Berg-Weger prior to submission. We also encourage you to review our Instructions to Authors on the Journal of Gerontological Social Work website for submission information.