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 3.9 CiteScore 6.3

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (JPHS, Editor-in-chief: Travis Sanchez, Emory University/Rollins School of Public Health) is a top-ranked (Q1) Clarivate (SCIE, SSCI etc), ScopusPubMed, PubMed CentralMEDLINE, Sherpa/Romeo, DOAJ, Embase, 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. 

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance received a Journal Impact Factor of 3.9ranked Q1 #59/419 journals in the category Public, Environmental & Occupational Health (Journal Citation Reports 2025 from Clarivate).

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance received a Scopus CiteScore of 6.3 (2024), placing it in the 84th percentile (#110/687) 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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Surveillance Reports

Varicella is a prevalent respiratory infectious disease. It is often inadequately managed in many regions, leading to an underestimation of its true incidence rate. The varicella vaccine remains the most effective measure for controlling the disease, and its widespread use has significantly reduced incidence rates. Additionally, non-pharmacological interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic have notably altered the epidemiological patterns of varicella. Continuous monitoring is therefore essential to understand these evolving patterns, aiding in the adjustment of immunization strategies and the development of prevention and control measures.

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Prevention and Health Promotion

Rapid weight gain (RWG) during infancy, defined as upward crossing of one centile line on a weight growth chart, is highly predictive of subsequent obesity risk. Identification of infant RWG could facilitate obesity risk assessment from infancy.

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Cross-Sectional Studies in Public Health

Exposure to information about mpox may shape distinct perceptual processes that influence vaccination intent. Understanding how such information impacts perceived risk and vaccination intention is crucial for designing effective risk communication and public health messaging, particularly among populations at high risk such as gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM).

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Reviews on Public Health Technology and Innovation

Active vaccine safety surveillance (AVSS) stands as a top priority for the World Health Organization (WHO), serving as a critical indicator of the fourth maturity level for national regulatory agencies.

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Health Care Quality and Health Services Research

High-cost (HC) patients, typically defined as the top 10% or 5% of patients with the highest healthcare costs, are responsible for over half of all healthcare-related spending. In China, approximately 95% of rural residents are covered by Urban and Rural Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URRBMI). In parallel, increasing population mobility has made it more common for rural residents to seek medical treatment and claim reimbursements across provincial boundaries. These trends underscore the importance of identifying and understanding high-cost patients within this group.

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Outbreak and Pandemic Preparedness and Management

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are effective tools for pandemic containment but often impose significant socioeconomic consequences that intensify over time. Public support and compliance to NPIs are crucial to ensure their effectiveness.

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Opioid and Related Substance Misuse

As a potent opioid analgesic, fentanyl transdermal patches (FTDs) have been widely used in patients with moderate to severe pain. However, increasing concerns about the opioid epidemic have made it important to strengthen the rational use and management of FTDs.

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Prevention and Health Promotion

Health education could be an effective way to increase knowledge regarding behavioral changes to prevent the recurrence of stroke; however, the evidence is ambiguous. A lack of both knowledge and compliance with treatment to control modifiable risk factors and unhealthy lifestyles increases the risk of stroke recurrence.

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HIV/AIDS/STI Prevention and Care

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals represent 2-5% of the US population, yet continue to account for more than two-thirds of new HIV infections annually.

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Surveillance Systems

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several United States jurisdictions began to regularly report levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater as a proxy for SARS-CoV-2 incidence. Despite the promise of this approach for improving COVID-19 situational awareness, the degree to which wastewater surveillance data agree with other data has varied, and better evidence is needed to understand the situations in which wastewater surveillance data tracks closely with traditional surveillance data.

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Longitudinal and Cohort Studies in Public Health

Converging evidence indicates an adolescent mental health crisis in Western societies that has developed and exacerbated over the past decade. The proposed driving factors of this trend include more screen time, physical inactivity, and social isolation but their causal influence on mental health is insufficiently understood.

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Surveillance Reports

Hepatitis B is an important public health challenge facing China, Understanding the long-term epidemiological trends and evolving spatial distribution patterns is critical for optimizing prevention strategies and achieving the WHO's 2030 hepatitis elimination targets.

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