Aims and Scope of the Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine
JTMH · OPEN ACCESS PUB
What the journal publishes, where the boundaries of each subject area lie, and how to tell whether a manuscript belongs here.
- Discipline
- Tropical medicine
- Core domains
- Six
- Access
- Open, immediate
- Review
- Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
What the Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine publishes
The Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine (JTMH) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal published by Open Access Pub. It publishes research on the diseases of tropical and subtropical settings — their transmission, ecology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control — across vector-borne disease and vector biology, neglected tropical diseases, tropical parasitology, tropical bacterial, viral, fungal and mycobacterial infection, clinical tropical medicine, and tropical epidemiology, prevention and control.
The journal aims to advance understanding of tropical diseases and improve their diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control. It welcomes basic, clinical, epidemiological and public-health research, including work that informs future investigations as well as current practice. Methods, context and limitations should be reported appropriately for the study design. Careful negative and partial results are considered on the same basis as positive ones.
Tropical medicine brings together pathogen and host biology, clinical care, epidemiology, prevention and the environmental and social conditions that shape health. Research may address one part of a disease system; it need not measure every part. The journal considers substantive contributions to tropical medicine wherever the research is conducted.
The one rule this scope turns on
The manuscript must make a substantive contribution to understanding tropical diseases or to tropical medical practice, including their biological foundations, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, control and health-service delivery. Authors should explain this relevance in the research question, methods or interpretation. A tropical location or dataset alone does not establish fit, and a contribution may be relevant to other disciplines as well.
Scope eligibility is distinct from the quality of the evidence. Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. A study may be in scope and still require revision or be declined after editorial assessment.
The six domains at the center of the journal
These domains define the journal's main subject areas. Manuscripts should make a substantive contribution within them; the relevance test also applies to interdisciplinary work.
Vector-borne disease and vector biology
Malaria, dengue and other arboviral infections including chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever, leishmaniasis, human African and American trypanosomiasis, and filarial disease — their transmission, clinical course, treatment and control.
Vector biology and control are part of this domain rather than adjacent to it: vector ecology and behavior, entomological indicators, insecticide resistance, and the design and evaluation of vector-control interventions.
Hypothetical fitOutdoor biting behavior of Anopheles funestus and its effect on the protective efficacy of insecticide-treated nets in a perennial-transmission district.
Neglected tropical diseases
The recognized NTDs and the programs that address them include parasitic, bacterial, viral and fungal conditions as well as snakebite envenoming. Examples include soil-transmitted helminthiasis, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, human African trypanosomiasis, leprosy, Buruli ulcer, yaws, trachoma, tungiasis, scabies, cysticercosis, echinococcosis, mycetoma, noma and rabies. These examples are illustrative.
Morbidity management, rehabilitation, mass drug administration, reinfection dynamics, transmission assessment and elimination-program evaluation belong here, as do studies of the disability and stigma these conditions cause.
Hypothetical fitReinfection with soil-transmitted helminths twelve months after a third round of school-based deworming, and what it implies for treatment frequency.
Tropical parasitology
Protozoan and helminth parasites of medical importance: life-cycle and host–parasite biology, immunopathogenesis, antiparasitic pharmacology and resistance mechanisms, parasite population genetics, and the laboratory methods that support diagnosis and surveillance.
Basic and mechanistic research on medically important tropical parasites is in scope, including life-cycle biology, cell biology and host–parasite interactions. Its contribution to understanding the parasite or disease should be stated; immediate diagnostic, therapeutic or clinical application is not required.
Hypothetical fitMolecular markers of reduced praziquantel susceptibility in Schistosoma mansoni isolates from a high-transmission focus.
Tropical bacterial, viral, fungal and mycobacterial infection
Infections whose epidemiology, transmission or clinical burden is concentrated in or particular to tropical and subtropical settings: typhoid and invasive non-typhoidal salmonellosis, leptospirosis, melioidosis, rickettsial and scrub typhus infections, cholera, viral hemorrhagic fevers, endemic mycoses, and Buruli ulcer and other environmental mycobacteria.
Emerging and re-emerging infections belong here where a tropical or subtropical transmission link is stated — zoonotic spillover, a vector or reservoir moving into new range, or an outbreak in an endemic region. JTMH is not a general emerging-infections journal.
Hypothetical fitSeasonal incidence of melioidosis after monsoon flooding and the delay between presentation and culture-confirmed diagnosis.
Clinical tropical medicine
The care of patients with tropical diseases: recognition and differential diagnosis, severe and complicated disease, treatment and treatment failure, drug safety and adverse effects, co-infection, and management in pregnancy, in children, in older adults and in immunocompromised patients. Noninfectious conditions such as snakebite envenoming and podoconiosis, and nutritional or chronic disease questions with a substantive tropical exposure, clinical or disease-interaction dimension, are also relevant. A tropical study location alone does not bring general internal medicine into scope.
Also imported and travel-associated tropical disease seen outside endemic regions, pre-travel prevention, post-travel and post-migration screening, and the clinical consequences of delayed recognition where a disease is unfamiliar.
Hypothetical fitTime from presentation to diagnosis in imported Plasmodium falciparum malaria at a non-endemic referral center, and its relationship to severity at admission.
Tropical epidemiology, prevention and control
Disease distribution, incidence and prevalence, transmission dynamics and force of infection, risk-factor and spatial epidemiology, outbreak investigation, surveillance system design and performance, and the evaluation of control and elimination programs.
Prevention and delivery include vaccination, chemoprevention, mass treatment, case management and implementation research. Studies may examine needs, acceptability, feasibility, access, adaptation, delivery, sustainability or outcomes, using quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods.
Hypothetical fitSerological evidence of continued low-level dengue transmission during a two-year period in which notified cases fell to zero.
Tuberculosis, HIV and other infections that are not tropical by definition
Tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis, diarrheal disease, respiratory infection and antimicrobial resistance occur worldwide. They carry a very large share of the disease burden in tropical and subtropical countries, but a study of them is not tropical medicine simply because it was conducted in one.
Burden or transmission particular to tropical and subtropical settings · co-infection or interaction with a tropical disease · resistance patterns specific to endemic regions · diagnosis or treatment under the constraints of an endemic setting · or a control program operating in those settings.
General research on these infections, and research in which the tropical country is the place of recruitment rather than a feature of the question, belongs in a general infectious-disease, respiratory or HIV journal. The same rule governs every other globally distributed pathogen.
Adjacent disciplines, and the contribution each must make
These fields are welcome when the research offers a substantive contribution to tropical disease or tropical medical practice. A method or biological finding may also have wider applications; that broader value does not remove a well-supported tropical-medicine contribution.
- Diagnostics
Rapid, molecular, serological and point-of-care tests; microscopy and imaging; assay development, analytical performance, diagnostic accuracy and implementation. Evaluation should match the development stage and intended claim: analytical controls for early assays, appropriate reference standards for diagnostic accuracy, and evidence from the setting of use for claims of clinical utility.
Outside scope: device or assay engineering with no substantive tropical-disease research or diagnostic application. Early development does not need completed clinical deployment to be eligible.
- Therapeutics and drug development
Antiparasitic and antimicrobial pharmacology, therapeutic and pharmacokinetic trials, resistance mechanisms, repurposing, drug safety and treatment adherence. Screening, target discovery and lead studies are in scope when they address a tropical pathogen or disease. Controls, activity, selectivity and other evidence should match the study stage and claims; a completed development pathway is not required.
Outside scope: synthetic chemistry or phytochemical cataloging with no substantive tropical-disease question. Disease-directed screening is not excluded merely because it is early work; unsupported claims of efficacy remain unacceptable.
- Immunology and vaccines
Immune responses to tropical pathogens, immunopathogenesis, correlates of protection, vaccine trials, effectiveness and implementation in endemic populations.
Outside scope: immunology with no substantive contribution to understanding a tropical pathogen, host response or disease, where the pathogen serves only as an interchangeable experimental reagent.
- Genomic epidemiology
Pathogen and vector genomics addressing biological, evolutionary, epidemiological, clinical or control questions: life-cycle regulation, population structure, transmission chains, importation and local transmission, resistance markers and outbreak phylogenetics. Curated genomic resources and methods can contribute where their value for tropical-disease research is explained.
Outside scope: sequence deposition or assembly with no explained biological, methodological or disease relevance. The strength and completeness of the analysis are assessed separately from subject fit.
- One Health and zoonoses
Zoonotic transmission and spillover, animal and environmental reservoirs, vector ecology at the animal–human interface and integrated surveillance. Studies of animals, vectors or environmental samples are eligible when their relevance to human tropical disease is explained; they need not directly measure human cases or clinical outcomes.
Not: veterinary, agricultural or ecological research with no stated pathway to human health.
- Climate and environment
Effects of temperature, rainfall, flooding, land use and ecological change on vectors, reservoirs, exposure, transmission and disease risk. Empirical, experimental and modeling studies, including future projections, are eligible when the tropical-disease connection is substantive and assumptions and uncertainty are reported. Vector or reservoir measures can be appropriate outcomes.
Outside scope: climate, hydrological or land-use research without a supported connection to tropical disease, exposure, vectors or reservoirs.
- Modeling, data science and AI
Transmission and intervention modeling, outbreak forecasting, geospatial risk mapping, digital surveillance and algorithmic diagnostic support. The manuscript should explain its tropical-medicine contribution, assumptions, data limitations and uncertainty. Simulation, calibration, sensitivity analysis, benchmarking and external validation should be used as appropriate to the design and claims; clinical deployment is not a universal requirement.
Outside scope: generic computational benchmarking that offers no substantive insight, research resource or method for tropical disease. A method applicable to several diseases can be in scope when its tropical-medicine contribution is demonstrated.
- Health systems and implementation
Access to diagnosis and treatment, diagnostic and medicine supply, health-worker capacity, task-shifting, service delivery and program implementation. Research on barriers, acceptability, feasibility, community participation and policy implementation is relevant before, during or after delivery; a completed intervention or measured improvement in health is not required for scope eligibility.
Outside scope: general health-service management, financing or workforce research with no substantive tropical-medicine question.
- Health economics and policy
Cost, cost-effectiveness and budget impact of tropical-disease diagnosis, treatment, vector control and elimination programs; household economic burden; and policy analysis of tropical-disease control.
Not: health-financing or social-science research where the tropical disease is an illustration rather than the subject.
A substantive contribution to tropical disease or tropical medical practice establishes relevance, even when the finding also applies to other diseases or disciplines.
Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine · Open Access Pub
Geography of the disease, not of the laboratory
Scope is not restricted by where a study was carried out, where its authors are based, or the income classification of the country involved. Tropical-disease research is done in endemic settings, in reference and research laboratories, in drug, vaccine and diagnostic development, in imported-disease and travel clinics, in international collaborations, and in computational and modeling groups.
Work on imported malaria in a European referral center, on a candidate vaccine in a laboratory on another continent, on dengue serotype dynamics in a modeling group, and on schistosomiasis control in an endemic district are equally within scope. What is assessed is the tropical-disease question, not the address on the manuscript.
Research conducted in endemic settings is expected to involve the investigators and institutions of those settings and to report the permissions under which it was done; the requirements are set out in the Editorial Policies.
Every form of contribution is judged on the same scope test
Research, evidence synthesis and clinical observations can address the same scope through different designs, including laboratory, observational, qualitative, modeling and clinical studies. Consult the Instructions for Authors for submission categories and preparation requirements. Study design and article category are distinct from subject eligibility.
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. Editorial decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships, or editorial and reviewer roles.
Case reports are within scope. Eligibility and editorial priority are separate questions: a tropical-disease case report is in scope, and carries most weight when it adds diagnostic learning, documents an atypical or severe presentation, reports imported or travel-associated disease outside its usual range, describes a treatment failure, interaction or complication, reports a co-infection of clinical consequence, or signals an emerging or re-emerging infection.
What the journal does not publish
Editorial screening assesses the manuscript’s subject and contribution against the boundaries below.
- Infectious-disease research with no substantive tropical-disease biological, epidemiological, clinical, prevention or control contribution.
- Microbiology, molecular or cell biology with no substantive relevance to tropical pathogens, hosts, vectors or disease.
- General public-health, health-service or social-science research with no substantive tropical-medicine question.
- Computational or statistical benchmarking with no substantive tropical-medicine insight, application or research resource.
- Climate, ecological or land-use research with no substantive tropical-disease, exposure, vector or reservoir connection.
- Veterinary and agricultural research with no stated pathway to human health.
- Medicinal chemistry, general pharmacology and device engineering without a tropical-disease application.
- General internal medicine or noncommunicable-disease research with no substantive tropical exposure, clinical, disease-interaction or prevention question.
- Studies whose only connection to tropical medicine is the country in which they were conducted.
Is my manuscript in scope?
The first two questions assess subject fit; the third supports manuscript preparation. Scope eligibility does not guarantee acceptance. Small samples, null results or a study’s early development stage do not by themselves make its subject out of scope; conclusions must remain proportionate to the evidence.
Does the work address a tropical-disease or tropical-medicine question?
Identify the disease, biological process, exposure, clinical problem or service-delivery question and explain its relevance under the boundaries above. Study location alone is insufficient.
What contribution does the work make to that question?
Explain the contribution to understanding, methods, diagnosis, care, prevention or control. Wider applications are compatible with a substantive tropical-medicine contribution.
Does the reporting support the study’s claims?
Report the methods, context, evidence and limitations appropriate to the design. Clinical and population studies describe participants and case definitions; laboratory work describes materials and controls; qualitative work explains sampling and analysis; models state assumptions, evaluation and uncertainty. Association alone does not establish causation.
Authors who are uncertain are welcome to send a title and abstract to the editorial office at [email protected] before preparing a full submission, and will receive an assessment of fit.
Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine (JTMH) is published by Open Access Pub. Articles are open access under CC BY 4.0 and authors retain copyright.