This issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress begins our 21st year of publication. The field of traumatic stress studies has grown and matured in the 20 years since the inaugural issue appeared in 1988. We have a substantially greater understanding of what trauma is and how it leads to difficulties such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to personal growth as well. We also have a substantially greater understanding of the biological, psychological, and behavioral changes associated with trauma. We have good questionnaires and interviews to assess trauma and its effects, and by using these tools have come to appreciate the scope of the problem worldwide. We know much more than we did 20 years ago about how to treat the adverse effects of trauma, and even have several evidence-based practice guidelines. Information about treatment grew so much during the past few years that ISTSS-the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies-has updated its own practice guideline (Foa, Keane, & Friedman, 2000) with a new edition to appear in 2008 (Foa, Keane, & Friedman, in press).
However, the growth of knowledge about prevention has not kept pace with the growth of knowledge about these other topics. Despite increased understanding of how to intervene-or notin the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, we still do not have much solid evidence about how to prepare someone for the experience and prevent negative consequences from occurring. I am grateful to Elana Newman, the Past President of ISTSS, for focusing the 2007 annual meeting on prevention. I was impressed by the extent to which the meeting's co-chairs, Joanne Davis and Jon Elhai, managed to emphasize the theme of prevention in their selection of presentations while maintaining diversity of the specific content. It was stimulating to learn more about prevention from so many different perspectives. We will be publishing selected presentations from the meeting in a special issue of the Journal later this year.
The need for information about prevention is particularly acute given the ongoing conflict in Iraq. When I started receiving manuscripts in 2005, I did not imagine that the fighting would be still be ongoing in 2008; to be honest, I worried about this possibility, but hoped that my worry would be unnecessary. It was not. Psychological and physical casualties continue to rise among both military personnel and civilians. One of the most recent