From the Editors

Dear Colleagues,

The last few months have been the most difficult period in the history of the “Journal of Health Inequalities” (JHI). On 17 January this year, Mateusz Zygmunt Zatoński passed away after a short illness.
Mateusz was a co-founder and member of the editorial team of JHI. The Journal was created on the initiative of Professor Andrzej Wojtyła and myself in 2016, while Mateusz Zatoński, Kinga Janik-Koncewicz, and a small group of people worked every day and were responsible for all issues related to the Journal’s life. It is worth mentioning that JHI was created from scratch a few years ago. However, in December 2021, the Minister of Education and Science awarded our Journal with 100 points. JHI has become one of the highest rated scientific journals in Poland. Mateusz’s participation in what we have managed to achieve during the last seven years is crucial. He was proud of JHI and was its ambassador. It is our duty to document and present his achievements in various fields of scientific activity, which we will try to do in the next issues of JHI. In the December issue, we plan to prepare a series of articles presenting Mateusz’s legacy. This will be related, among others, to the planned scientific events at Calisia University, Kalisz, Poland, and the London School of Hygiene, London, United Kingdom, in the autumn of this year. Of course, nobody and nothing can replace Mateusz. It only remains for us to commemorate his life and scientific achievements.
The present issue of JHI begins with an article by Kinga Janik-Koncewicz recalling her collaboration with Mateusz (see pp. 2-3). Then we would like to focus your attention on the paper (still with Mateusz’s contribution) that is the next step of our work and fundamental summary of our scientific activity in recent years, regarding a health crisis that has been taking place in Poland for some time We hope that this publication will be the basis for a broad discussion of scientists from Poland and abroad on the health phenomena taking place in Poland and the mistakes that have been made by the entire community.
In addition, in this issue we present a paper summarizing the factors that determine cardiovascular health (see article: Environmental and behavioural determinants of cardiovascular health on pages: 17-24), as well as a series of articles devoted to various aspects related to one of the most important global challenges of the last 3 years: the COVID-19 pandemic (see articles: Acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine based on the Health Belief Model in the Republic of Georgia: a cross-sectional study on pages: 25-32 and COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the psychology of belief on pages: 33-36). In addition, a large part of this issue is devoted to publications on various nutritional issues concerning young mothers in Poland (see articles: Eating habits and nutritional adequacy in breastfeeding and formula-feeding mothers. A pilot study on pages: 44-55 and Mothers’ knowledge of nutritional programming influences DHA intake in children-analysis of nutrition of children aged 13-36 months in Poland on pages: 56-65).
We hope that each of you will find something interesting in this issue of the Journal. We invite everyone to participate in the scientific discussion and to submit scientific comments in the form of letters to the Editors. We will make every effort to ensure that editorial life goes on and that our journal continues to develop and be a platform for the exchange of knowledge on various dimensions and aspects of health inequalities.