Tribute to Bradford H. Gray, Outgoing Editor of The Milbank Quarterly

With the December issue of The Milbank Quarterly, now in its final touches, and the arrival of October first, we come to the final chapter of the distinguished service of Bradford H. Gray as Editor of The Milbank Quarterly. On behalf of the Board and staff of the Milbank Memorial Fund, the Members of the Quarterly’s Editorial Board, and all the readers and authors who have been enriched by the work of the Quarterly, I would like to commend Brad and express our gratitude for both his hard work and the high standards he has set for the Quarterly.

His successor, Howard Markel, inherits a strong publication, thanks to Brad. From the third issue of 2000 to the fourth issue of 2013, Brad managed and advanced a journal that has had a distinguished history since its inception in 1923. In the thirteen years that he was editor of the Quarterly, Brad reviewed more than 1,900 manuscripts with the help of more than 2,500 reviewers. His reputation for highly regarded scholarship and his strong editorial skills enabled him to expand the reach of the Quarterly to attract new authors. One of Brad’s editorial hallmarks was the care he took during the editorial review process – extending to comprehensive and thoughtful comments back to prospective authors. Not coincidentally, the number of submissions per year more than doubled under his editorship, and there was an increase in the number of submissions from authors outside the United States.

The Quarterly continued to be highly cited under Brad’s editorial leadership, consistently ranking in the top six journals in the categories of “Health Care Sciences and Services” and “Health Policy and Services,” and ranking first in those categories for the past three years. The number of citations to all Quarterly articles per year increased more than seventy-five percent since 2000. The Quarterly also continued to publish articles that remain topical long after their publication date, as evidenced by the ongoing demand for older articles – a tribute to Brad’s strong editorial judgment.

Brad, in addition to his editorial responsibilities, has been a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center. Prior to joining the Urban Institute in 2004, he held senior policy research positions at the New York Academy of Medicine, Yale University, and the Institute of Medicine. He has written extensively about for-profit and nonprofit health care and has also published research on Medicaid, managed care, ethical issues in research, and the politics of health services research. Brad holds a PhD in sociology from Yale University. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center and AcademyHealth, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

As he transitions to his next, well-earned, much-postponed and hopefully more leisurely stage of a distinguished professional career, it is important to express our appreciation for the diligence, good humor, intellectual curiosity and collegiality that have marked Brad’s tenure at the Quarterly. He has built a legacy that has greatly enriched and strengthened the efforts of all of us who work to bring thoughtful, credible evidence to the task of improving the health of populations.

Christopher F. Koller
President, Milbank Memorial Fund
Publisher, The Milbank Quarterly