About the Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine
JTMH · OPEN ACCESS PUB
A peer-reviewed open access journal for research on the diseases of tropical and subtropical settings — their transmission, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control, in the places where they occur and in the centers that receive them.
- Publisher
- Open Access Pub
- Access
- Open, immediate
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- Review
- Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
What JTMH is
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 epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tropical and infectious diseases affecting populations in endemic regions and travelers worldwide, across vector-borne disease, neglected tropical diseases, parasitology, tropical infectious disease microbiology, tropical public health and epidemiology, and diagnostic and translational research.
Every article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license and is free to read, download and reuse with attribution from the day it appears. Authors retain copyright in their own work.
Aims and Scope sets out each subject area in full, the boundary of each, and the kinds of study the editors are looking for within it.
Why the journal exists
Much of the evidence that decides tropical-disease practice is specific to a place: a prevalence survey in one sub-county, a resistance signal at one sentinel site, a diagnostic that performs differently at a health post than in a reference laboratory. Findings of that kind are locally decisive, and they are only useful to anyone else if they are reported in enough detail to be compared.
JTMH exists to publish that evidence properly: with the sampling frame stated, the case definition given, the diagnostic method named, and the setting described well enough that a reader in a comparable district can judge whether the result transfers. Work of that kind accumulates. A single prevalence estimate is a data point; fifty comparable ones are a map of where transmission is and is not falling.
The questions that make this necessary are not settled ones. Vector ranges are moving. Antimalarial and antimicrobial resistance is being detected in new places. Elimination programs that reached low transmission have to hold it without the case numbers that once justified their funding. Diagnostics that perform well under trial conditions perform differently at a rural health post. Each of those is an empirical question, and each needs a venue that will publish a careful negative or partial result as readily as a positive one.
What makes tropical medicine a discipline of its own
Tropical medicine is not a list of pathogens that happen to occur at low latitudes. It is defined by a set of conditions that change what a study has to account for before its result can be believed.
The agent, host and environment provide a useful framework for interpreting many tropical-disease studies. Their importance depends on the question: a study may investigate one component without measuring every part. Basic research on a pathogen or host response, clinically relevant research and environmental or population studies can each make substantive contributions.
The epidemiologic triad illustrates relationships among agent, host and environment. Vector transmission is one pathway; tropical medicine also includes non-vector-borne and relevant noninfectious conditions.
Research from any discipline is welcome where its relevance to tropical disease or to tropical practice is substantive and stated. That relevance is what the editors assess: a molecular study of a schistosome, a modeling study of dengue seasonality and a health-systems study of drug supply in an endemic district all qualify, and each is judged on whether the tropical-disease question it answers is a real one.
One chain, not three separate fields
Clinical care, epidemiology and vector biology are often published apart. In tropical disease they are stages of one chain, and a result at any stage changes what the others can assume. JTMH publishes across the whole of it.
Reservoir and vector
Where the agent persists between cases, which species carries it, and how season, water and land use move that population.
Transmission
Biting or exposure intensity, the force of infection, and the entomological and serological indicators that estimate them.
Clinical presentation
How the infection appears in a semi-immune population, in a child, in a returning traveler, and alongside co-infection and malnutrition.
Diagnosis and treatment
Microscopy, rapid tests and molecular assays as they perform in the setting of use; drug efficacy, resistance and the regimens that remain available.
Prevention and control
Vector control, chemoprevention, mass drug administration, vaccines, and the coverage and adherence that decide whether they work.
Surveillance and response
Case notification, outbreak investigation, and the health-system capacity that turns a detected signal into an intervention — which returns to Stage 01.
The chain a tropical-disease question moves along. A drug-resistance finding at Stage 04 changes the prevention options at Stage 05; a vector range shift at Stage 01 changes who presents at Stage 03. A manuscript is assessed for what it assumes about the stages it does not measure.
Who the journal serves
JTMH is written for people who have to act on the evidence, and for the people who generate it.
- In the clinic
Physicians managing tropical infection in endemic settings, and infectious disease, travel medicine and tropical medicine services in referral centers that receive imported and travel-associated cases.
- In the field and the laboratory
Epidemiologists, parasitologists, vector biologists, entomologists and clinical microbiologists whose work is grounded in a defined population or transmission setting.
- In programs and policy
Public health and global health researchers, surveillance and control program staff, and health-systems researchers working on delivery, coverage and supply in endemic districts.
- In development
- Diagnostic, therapeutic and vaccine researchers, from exploratory and mechanistic work to clinical evaluation and implementation. Evidence is assessed in relation to the development stage and the claims made.
Responsible tropical-medicine research
Tropical-disease research is carried out in clinics, in laboratories and in the field, frequently with the participation of whole communities and frequently across a national border. The journal's requirements follow from that, and the full text of each is on Editorial Policies.
- People and communities
Approval from a named research-ethics committee and documented informed consent, reported with the approval reference. Where a study enrolls school-age children or works at community level, the community and administrative permissions obtained in the study setting are stated as well.
- Trials
Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
- Specimens, pathogens and vectors
Clinical specimens, isolates and field-collected vectors are reported with their provenance, the collection permissions under which they were obtained, and the containment conditions under which they were handled. Material moved between countries carries the transfer terms it was moved under.
- Reporting
Randomized trials follow CONSORT, observational studies STROBE, systematic reviews PRISMA, diagnostic-accuracy studies STARD, and animal studies ARRIVE. Prevalence and surveillance work states its sampling frame, its case definition and the diagnostic method used to confirm it.
- Data and interests
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. All authors declare competing interests and the role of every funder in study design, analysis and the decision to publish.
- Credit for the study setting
Researchers based where the work was done are expected to appear in the author list when they meet authorship criteria, and the institutions that hosted the study are named. Data collected in a country is reported in terms its own investigators would recognize.
JTMH publishes substantive contributions to tropical diseases and tropical medical practice, including biological foundations, clinical care, prevention, control and health-service delivery. A tropical location alone does not establish fit.
Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine · Open Access Pub
How the journal publishes
- Peer review
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
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.
- Decisions
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
- Editorial independence
Decisions are taken by the handling editor on the reviewers' assessments. Payment of the article processing charge follows acceptance and has no bearing on it, and no editorial or reviewing role carries any expectation of a favorable decision.
- Open access and license
Every article is open access from publication under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright; readers may share and adapt the work, including commercially, with attribution.
- Correcting the record
Errors that affect the record are corrected in a linked, citable notice, and articles are retracted where the published findings cannot stand. Notices remain permanently available beside the article they concern.
- Charges
- Publication is funded by an article processing charge payable after acceptance. There is no submission fee. The amount and the separate withdrawal terms are on Article processing charges.
Who is accountable for what appears
Every manuscript is handled by a named editor, who selects the reviewers, reads their assessments and takes the decision. Editors do not handle manuscripts from their own institution or from recent collaborators, and a manuscript authored by an editor is assigned to a different one.
The journal's editorial board is drawn from institutions across several countries and is listed in full, with each member's country and, where the member publishes one, an ORCID iD that opens their own public record. The Editorial Board page is the source of record for who serves and in what capacity.
Researchers with a substantive publication record in a subject area the journal covers are invited to join the editorial board or to review for the journal.
Journal facts
- Title
- Journal of Tropical Diseases and Medicine
- Abbreviation
- JTMH
- Publisher
- Open Access Pub
- Discipline
- Tropical diseases and medicine
- Access model
- Open access, immediate
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- Copyright
- Retained by authors
- Peer review
- Single-blind, double-blind on request
- Language
- English
- Editorial office
- [email protected]
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.