editor's welcome

the increasing number of aging people around the world, especially in developing countries, and its economic, social, and health consequences demonstrate the necessity of studies focusing on the elderly. the results of the studies can provide ways for solving the existing and future problems that are associated with the aging population. although research studies on elderly are conducted in iran and other developing countries, many remain unpublished or published in the languages that cannot be universally used because there are not many english language journals in the area of healthy aging. the elderly health research center in the school of public health at shahid sadoughi university (ssu) of medical sciences in yazd, iran is the publisher of the elderly health journal (ehj), an english language and peer-reviewed journal. the ehj received the approval from iran's ministry of culture and islamic guidance and periodical commission of ministry of health and medical education. the call for papers was through e-mails and announcements on the ssu website. we are pleased to release the first issue of the ehj, containing eight papers related to aging and health. we hope that the readers will find the papers useful. we will do the best we can to receive international indexing for the journal. so we invite researchers, students, and practitioners in the area of healthy aging to submit their research-based articles to assist us in achieving our final goal, which is aging health promotion around the world especially in developing countries. we welcome constructive suggestions to improve the overall quality of the ehj. looking forward to seeing your comments and manuscripts.