About Advances in Global Health

Advances in Global Health is a peer-reviewed, open access, research journal that is focused on advancing health equity throughout the world, and is committed to decolonizing and democratizing global health.  This entails purposefully giving prominence to knowledge and knowledge production from the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In so doing, Advances in Global Health is committed to the following: 1) having an editorial board which is representative of LMICs; b) publishing knowledge from the LMICs; 3) focusing on issues that are pertinent to the LMICs; and 4) securing representation of lead authors from the LMICs. The core focus of Advances in Global Health are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 interconnected goals with 169 targets that the 191 UN member nations have agreed to achieve by 2030.  The SDGs were originally published in 2015 on the 70th anniversary of the UN, to set  out a “supremely ambitious and transformational vision.... a world free of poverty, hunger, disease and want, where all life can thrive.”  Advances in Global Health centers health as its focus and promotes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the bi-directional relationship between other key sectors, e.g. poverty, food security, gender equality and planetary health on health outcomes.  These sections form the core areas of research inquiry and editorial activity for the journal:

• Ending poverty in all its forms (SDG 1)

• End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture (SDG 2);

• Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages (SDG 3);

• Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls (SDG 5);

• Mitigating the human health impacts of human-caused disruptions to earth’s natural systems (planetary health) (SDG 13 [climate action], 14 [life below water], and 15 [life on land]).

Each section of the journal emphasizes individual disciplinary approaches to these goals as outlined in each section’s aims and scope, but the journal as a whole welcomes and encourages research that is interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary in nature and that cuts across established disciplinary boundaries.  The journal is dedicated to inclusivity and seeks to involve researchers from low and middle income countries in all aspects of the journal, and specifically, encourages contributions led by  authors situated in these regions.

The following article types are accepted for consideration:

• Research articles— presenting the results of primary research and typically following the format of a traditional research paper.  Research articles are peer-reviewed and generally should not exceed 5,000 words;

• Opinion/Perspectives—explanatory essays, commentaries,  treatises, and opinion papers.  Opinion and perspective pieces are generally invited by the editors and should generally not exceed 1,000 words.  Opinion and perspective pieces are not peer-reviewed;

• Reviews & Syntheses—written to bring together and summarize the results/conclusions from multiple original research articles/studies.  These often identify and analyze key gaps in the existing literature, and are peer-reviewed.  Reviews and synthesis should also not exceed about 5,000 words;

• Letters and short reports—letters are short articles that present significant discoveries, methods, and resources.  Letters and short reports are peer-reviewed and should not exceed 2,000 words.

In addition, the journal welcomes the submission of proposals for special features, a set of related articles addressing themes or projects of broad interest, typically 4–10 articles in each group, usually including a synthesizing commentary piece.  Please see the journal policies page for detailed requirements for each article type.