1. Focus Areas

Public Health & SDGs welcomes original, evidence-based, and critically informed scholarship across a broad range of population health and sustainable development topics, including but not limited to the following:

• Universal Health Coverage and Healthcare Access Research examining access to essential health services, financial protection, healthcare affordability, service quality, and equitable healthcare delivery. Relevant topics include universal health coverage, primary healthcare, unmet medical needs, barriers to care, and policies designed to reduce disparities in healthcare access.
• Disease Prevention, Epidemiology, and Health Promotion Epidemiological investigations, infectious disease surveillance, vaccination programs, noncommunicable disease prevention, health promotion, risk-factor analysis, and evaluation of population-level interventions. Studies may address prevention strategies across different age groups, healthcare settings, and social contexts.
• Climate Change, Environmental Health, and Resilience Research on the health consequences of climate change, air and water pollution, environmental exposures, extreme weather events, occupational hazards, and environmental inequalities. The section also welcomes studies evaluating climate adaptation, disaster preparedness, resilient health infrastructure, and environmentally sustainable healthcare practices.
• Nutrition, Food Security, and Population Health Investigations of malnutrition, dietary patterns, food insecurity, nutritional inequalities, maternal and child nutrition, and nutrition-related chronic diseases. Studies may evaluate nutritional interventions, food environments, health education, and policies addressing the relationships between nutrition, socioeconomic conditions, and health outcomes.
• Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-being Population mental health, psychological well-being, social determinants of mental illness, mental health service accessibility, suicide prevention, community-based interventions, and psychosocial support. Research may evaluate conventional, community-based, or integrative approaches where supported by appropriate evidence.
• Health Systems, Governance, and Policy Health system strengthening, healthcare financing, workforce development, public health governance, healthcare administration, institutional accountability, and health policy evaluation. Contributions may use quantitative, qualitative, comparative, or mixed-methods approaches to examine policy implementation, system performance, and healthcare equity.
• Community Engagement and Sustainable Health Interventions Community participation, health literacy, participatory research, locally adapted public health initiatives, implementation science, and evaluation of community-based healthcare programs. Research may examine the effectiveness, feasibility, acceptability, sustainability, and transferability of interventions across diverse populations and healthcare contexts.

2. Article Types Accepted

Public Health & SDGs considers submissions under the article categories established by Health Nexus. Manuscripts should demonstrate a clear contribution to public health knowledge, health systems research, health policy, or the health-related dimensions of sustainable development.

• Original Research Articles: Empirical studies employing epidemiological, experimental, observational, qualitative, quantitative, comparative, implementation science, or mixed-methods designs. Relevant contributions include evaluations of public health interventions, health system performance, population health outcomes, and health policy implementation.
• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: Methodologically rigorous syntheses of existing evidence concerning disease prevention, public health interventions, healthcare accessibility, environmental health, health inequalities, or sustainable health systems.
• Narrative Reviews and Perspectives: Critical evaluations of public health challenges, international health developments, emerging policy priorities, and research related to the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Clinical Case Reports: Clinically significant individual cases or case series with clear relevance to public health practice, disease surveillance, prevention, or healthcare delivery. Submissions must meet the journal's clinical reporting and patient consent requirements.
• Methodological and Theoretical Papers: Contributions developing or evaluating methods, conceptual frameworks, policy evaluation models, implementation approaches, or analytical tools relevant to population health, healthcare systems, and sustainable development.
• Short Communications: Concise reports of focused public health findings, preliminary investigations, emerging risks, program evaluations, or scientifically relevant observations.
• Editorials and Commentaries: Evidence-informed discussions of public health priorities, global health governance, healthcare inequalities, policy developments, and progress toward health-related SDGs. These contributions are normally commissioned or approved by the Editorial Office.

Health policy analyses, community-based case studies, implementation evaluations, and comparative health system studies may be considered under the appropriate article category according to their primary objectives and research design. Nonclinical program case studies should not automatically be classified as Clinical Case Reports.

Detailed requirements for manuscript preparation, article structure, abstracts, references, and supplementary materials are provided in the journal's Article Types and Author Guidelines.

3. Section Goals

Public Health & SDGs aims to strengthen the evidence base for sustainable, equitable, and effective approaches to improving population health. Its principal objectives are:

• Advance Evidence-Based Public Health: Support methodologically rigorous research that improves understanding of population health challenges and contributes to the design, implementation, and evaluation of effective interventions.
• Support Health-Related Sustainable Development: Encourage scholarship examining the implementation, evaluation, and implications of health-related SDG targets, with particular attention to SDG 3 and its connections with social and environmental determinants of health.
• Promote Health Equity and Universal Access: Highlight research addressing disparities in health outcomes, healthcare financing, service availability, and access to quality care across different populations and socioeconomic contexts.
• Encourage Cross-Sector and Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Foster constructive engagement among researchers, healthcare professionals, policymakers, public health institutions, and communities to address complex health challenges.
• Strengthen Health Systems and Policy Evaluation: Support research examining institutional capacity, public health governance, healthcare workforce development, service delivery, financing arrangements, and evidence-informed policy decisions.
• Promote Context-Sensitive and Sustainable Interventions: Encourage critical evaluation of public health programs with attention to feasibility, effectiveness, implementation context, equity, sustainability, and potential transferability to other settings.

4. Peer Review and Editorial Standards

Manuscripts submitted to Public Health & SDGs are evaluated under the editorial and publication policies of Health Nexus. The assessment process emphasizes scientific validity, methodological appropriateness, ethical responsibility, transparency, and relevance to public health or health-related sustainable development.

• Initial Editorial Screening: All submissions undergo preliminary assessment for relevance to the section, originality, methodological adequacy, research ethics, reporting quality, and compliance with manuscript preparation requirements. Submissions that do not meet these standards may be rejected without external peer review.
• Double-Blind Peer Review: Research manuscripts selected for external review undergo double-blind peer review, normally involving at least two independent reviewers. Reviewers are selected according to the subject matter and methods of the study. Public health specialists, epidemiologists, health policy researchers, statisticians, or other qualified experts may be invited as appropriate. Editorials and Commentaries may follow editorial assessment procedures applicable to their category.
• Public Health and SDG Relevance: Authors should clearly explain how their research contributes to public health knowledge, healthcare practice, policy evaluation, or understanding of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Relevant SDG targets should be identified where applicable, without overstating the study's contribution to global or national target achievement.
• Indicators and Evidence: Studies making quantitative claims about population health, intervention effectiveness, policy impact, or SDG progress should use clearly defined and appropriate measures. Authors must explain data sources, measurement procedures, analytical methods, uncertainty, and limitations. Official SDG indicators should be used where relevant and appropriate to the research question.
• Methodological Rigor: Research must employ methods appropriate to its objectives. Epidemiological studies should address sampling, confounding, bias, and analytical validity. Qualitative research should demonstrate transparent data collection and analysis. Mixed-methods and implementation studies should explain how their methodological components contribute to the research question.
• Reporting Guidelines: Authors must follow applicable reporting standards, including CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational research, PRISMA for systematic reviews, and CARE for clinical case reports. Relevant standards for qualitative research, health economic evaluation, and healthcare quality improvement should also be followed where appropriate.
• Research Ethics and Community Participation: Studies involving human participants, identifiable personal information, or other activities requiring ethical oversight must obtain appropriate approval or documented exemption. Researchers must address informed consent, confidentiality, participant protection, and community-level risks where applicable. Community participation does not automatically exempt a study from ethical review.
• Health Equity and Contextual Interpretation: Authors should consider relevant socioeconomic, demographic, institutional, cultural, and geographic factors when interpreting findings. Claims regarding health inequalities or intervention effects across populations must be supported by appropriate evidence and should acknowledge limitations in representativeness and generalizability.
• Research Integrity and Data Transparency: Authors must disclose funding, competing interests, data availability, and relevant use of artificial intelligence in accordance with journal policies. Supporting data, research instruments, analytical procedures, and supplementary documentation should be made available where ethically and legally permissible.
• Responsible Policy Interpretation: Policy recommendations must be proportionate to the evidence presented. Authors should distinguish descriptive findings, causal evidence, theoretical arguments, and normative recommendations. Evidence of effectiveness in one setting does not automatically establish scalability, sustainability, or effectiveness in other populations.
• Editorial Independence: Editorial decisions are based on scientific and scholarly merit, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and relevance to the section. Review recommendations inform but do not determine the final editorial decision.