Aims

JMCHS aims to strengthen public health practice and policy in South Asia and similar settings by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed evidence on the health of populations and communities. The journal values studies that are methodologically sound, relevant to local health systems, and written so that the findings can be used by policymakers and practitioners.

Scope

The journal welcomes submissions in the following areas:

•     Epidemiology and disease surveillance: descriptive and analytical epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases, outbreak investigations, surveillance systems, burden-of-disease studies and One Health approaches, including zoonoses and antimicrobial resistance.

•     Maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health: antenatal and postnatal care, institutional delivery, immunisation, child growth and development, adolescent and reproductive health.

•     Nutrition: undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, anaemia, the double burden of malnutrition, infant and young child feeding and food security.

•     Non-communicable diseases and risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, cancer screening, mental health, tobacco and alcohol use, physical activity and injuries.

•     Health systems and policy: primary health care, health financing and insurance schemes, universal health coverage, community health workers, health workforce, quality of care and health programme evaluation.

•     Environmental and occupational health: air and water quality, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), climate and health, heat stress, and health of informal-sector, agricultural and industrial workers.

•     Health promotion and education: behaviour change communication, school health, health literacy and community mobilisation.

•     Social determinants and health equity: gender, caste and socioeconomic inequalities in health, urban slums, tribal and rural health, migrant and displaced populations.

•     Community-based interventions and implementation research: trials and evaluations of interventions delivered in communities, scale-up and sustainability.

•     Digital and data-driven public health: use of health management information systems, national surveys (such as NFHS and DHS), mobile health in community settings and public health informatics.

Geographic focus

Studies from any South Asian country are given priority. Research from other low- and middle-income settings is welcome when its findings are relevant to South Asian contexts. Manuscripts from outside the region should explain this relevance in the cover letter.

Article types

Original Research, Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses, Scoping Reviews, Narrative Reviews (with a documented search strategy), Policy Analyses, Field Reports, Short Communications, Study Protocols, Commentaries, Editorials and Letters to the Editor. See Author Instructions for definitions and word limits.

Out of scope

•     Individual clinical case reports and small clinical case series without a population or community health dimension.

•     Laboratory, animal or in-vitro studies without direct public health application.

•     Purely hospital-based clinical studies with no bearing on prevention, health services or population health.

•     Survey studies of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) that are purely descriptive, use non-validated tools and unrepresentative convenience samples, and offer no new insight — these are usually declined at editorial screening.

Keywords

public health; community medicine; epidemiology; South Asia; preventive medicine; health systems; maternal and child health; nutrition; disease surveillance; health policy; health equity; implementation research