Emerging Public Health Topics

JEI strives to ensure that we are good stewards of new scientific knowledge that is presented to the public, especially surrounding rapidly changing topics with potential for large-scale impact on public health

Authors are invited to submit hypothesis-driven research on any topic of their choosing. If during initial review of the manuscript before scientific review, an editor becomes concerned that a manuscript covers an emerging issue in public health, they will bring it to the other senior editors for discussion. The senior editors will make a decision on the manuscript which will typically be one of the following:

1. The manuscript can continue as submitted
2. The manuscript will be returned to the authors to reframe/rephrase certain parts and be allowed to continue
3. The manuscript will not be accepted into scientific review

These decisions will also be made, in part, based on the availability of reviewers with relevant expertise and weighing the implications of the findings of the manuscript.

Our previous COVID-19 manuscript guidelines will provide some information regarding topics that are likely to be restricted/harder to publish with an emerging public health topic.

June 14, 2020

Due to the complex and quickly changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, after extensive discussion, our editorial leadership has decided that JEI is not currently accepting manuscripts that focus on or have implications for the following topics:

• COVID-19 epidemiology (including disease modeling, analysis of risk factors, research into the origins of SARS-CoV-2)
• Management, detection, treatment or prevention of COVID-19 (including design, modeling and/or testing of detection systems, drugs, vaccines and other therapies and preventative measures)
• The biology of SARS-CoV-2 (including analysis of virus genomes and viral protein modeling/simulation)

We recognize that COVID-19 is an enduring public health threat to the global community that has and will continue to motivate and influence many students' research projects. If your manuscript is related to COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 and you believe that it is not covered by the above restricted topics, please email us before you submit your manuscript at [email protected]. Unless otherwise approved, all other COVID-19 manuscripts will be returned to the authors by our editors. As more information becomes available regarding COVID-19, we may update the above restrictions.