JMIR Public Health and Surveillance

A multidisciplinary journal that focuses on the intersection of public health and technology, public health informatics, mass media campaigns, surveillance, participatory epidemiology, and innovation in public health practice and research.

Editor-in-Chief:

Travis Sanchez, DVM, MPH, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, USA


Impact Factor 3.5 CiteScore 13.7

JMIR Public Health & Surveillance (JPHS, Editor-in-chief: Travis Sanchez, Emory University/Rollins School of Public Health) is a top-ranked (Q1) Clarivate (SCIE, SSCI etc), ScopusPMC/PubMedMEDLINE, CABI, and EBSCO/EBSCO essentials indexed, peer-reviewed international multidisciplinary journal with a unique focus on the intersection of innovation and technology in public health, and includes topics like public health informatics, surveillance (surveillance systems and rapid reports), participatory epidemiology, infodemiology and infoveillance, digital disease detection, digital epidemiology, electronic public health interventions, mass media/social media campaigns, health communication, and emerging population health analysis systems and tools. In June 2024, JPHS received an impact factor of 3.5. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance received a CiteScore of 13.7, placing it in the 97th percentile (#18 of 665) as a Q1 journal in the field of Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health.

JPHS has an international author- and readership and welcomes submissions from around the world.

We publish regular articles, reviews, protocols/system descriptions and viewpoint papers on all aspects of public health, with a focus on innovation and technology in public health. The main themes/topics covered by this journal can be found here.

Apart from publishing traditional public health research and viewpoint papers as well as reports from traditional surveillance systems, JPH was one of the first (if not the only) peer-reviewed journals to publish papers with surveillance or pharmacovigilance data from non-traditional, unstructured big data and text sources such as social media and the Internet (infoveillance, digital disease detection), or reports on novel participatory epidemiology projects, where observations are solicited from the public.  

Among other innovations, JPHS is also dedicated to support rapid open data sharing and rapid open access to surveillance and outbreak data. As one of the novel features we plan to publish rapid or even real-time surveillance reports and open data. The methods and description of the surveillance system may be peer-reviewed and published only once in detail, in a  "baseline report" (in a JMIR Res Protoc or a JMIR Public Health & Surveill paper), and authors then have the possibility to publish data and reports in frequent intervals rapidly and with only minimal additional peer-review (we call this article type "Rapid Surveillance Reports"). JMIR Publications may even work with authors/researchers and developers of selected surveillance systems on APIs for semi-automated reports (e.g. weekly reports to be automatically published in JPHS and indexed in PubMed, based on data-feeds from surveillance systems and minimal narratives and abstracts).

Furthermore, during epidemics and public health emergencies, submissions with critical data will be processed with expedited peer-review to enable publication within days or even in real-time.

We also publish descriptions of open data resources and open source software. Where possible, we can and want to publish or even host the actual software or dataset on the journal website.

Recent Articles

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Reviews on Public Health Technology and Innovation

Revealing the full potential of digital public health (DiPH) systems requires a wide-ranging tool to assess their maturity and readiness for emerging technologies. Although a variety of indices exist to assess digital health systems, questions arise about the inclusion of indicators of information and communications technology maturity and readiness, digital (health) literacy, and interest in DiPH tools by the society and workforce, as well as the maturity of the legal framework and the readiness of digitalized health systems. Existing tools frequently target one of these domains while overlooking the others. In addition, no review has yet holistically investigated the available national DiPH system maturity and readiness indicators using a multidisciplinary lens.

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Descriptive Epidemiology and Population Size Estimates

Heart failure is a challenging clinical and public health problem characterized by high prevalence and mortality among US adults in old age, along with recent decline in heart failure prevalence and increase in mortality. The changes of prevalence can be decomposed into pre-existing disease prevalence, disease incidence, and respective survival, while the changes of mortality could be decomposed into mortality in general population independent from heart failure, pre-existing heart failure prevalence, incidence, and respective survival. These epidemiological components may contribute differently to the changes in prevalence and mortality.

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Cross-Sectional Studies in Public Health

Sex differences in blood pressure (BP) levels and hypertension are important and the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in sex differences of hypertension remains unclear.

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General Articles on Innovation and Technology in Public Health

Since its introduction, telemedicine for patients with chronic diseases has been studied in various clinical settings. However, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness and medical safety of the nationwide adoption of telemedicine.

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Cross-Sectional Studies in Public Health

In recent years, the frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases and insufficient emergency response capabilities, particularly issues exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, have underscored the critical role of nurses in addressing public health crises. It is currently necessary to investigate the emergency preparedness of nursing personnel following the COVID-19 pandemic completely liberalized, aiming to identify weaknesses and optimize response strategies.

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Public Health Informatics

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed major gaps in public health agencies’ (PHAs) data and reporting infrastructure which limited public health officials’ ability to conduct disease surveillance, particularly among racial/ethnic minorities disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Leveraging existing Health Information Exchange Organizations (HIOs) is one possible mechanism to close these technical gaps as HIOs facilitate health information sharing across organizational boundaries.

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Theme Issue 2023: Preventive Strategies

Several important vaccines, such as the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, and influenza vaccine, have not been included in China’s National Immunization Program (NIP) due to a prolonged absence of updates and limited resources. Public engagement could identify concerns that require attention and foster trust to ensure continuous support for immunization.

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Surveillance Systems

Dengue fever, transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitoes, poses a significant public health challenge in tropical and subtropical regions. Dengue surveillance involves monitoring the incidence, distribution, and trends of infections through systematic data collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination. It supports public health decision-making, guiding interventions like vector control, vaccination campaigns, and public education.

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Cross-Sectional Studies in Public Health

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), one of the leading causes of hearing loss in young adults, is a major health care problem that has negative social and economic consequences. It is commonly recognized that individual susceptibility largely varies among individuals who are exposed to similar noise. An objective method is therefore designable to pick up and remove those who are extremely sensitive from the noise-exposed jobs to prevent them from getting severe NIHL.

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Surveillance Reports

Understanding the impact of asthma on public health is crucial for evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies.

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Longitudinal and Cohort Studies in Public Health

Cataract is a leading cause of vision impairment. Obesity-related risk factors, including insulin resistance, increase the risk of cataract. Fatty liver index (FLI) is a biomarker for non-invasive fat layer prediction of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). FLI has been used to evaluate the metabolic contribution in other organs besides the eye. However, no study exists on FLI and eye disease.

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Preprints Open for Peer-Review

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