Focus and Scopes

Global Public Health & Health Systems (GPHHS) is an open access journal. The journal publishes rigorous, policy-relevant scholarship that strengthens public health practice and improves how health systems are designed, financed, governed, and delivered—especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and other resource-constrained settings. We welcome work that moves beyond describing problems to testing solutions, improving implementation, and generating actionable evidence for decision-makers, programme managers, clinicians, and communities.

Our Focus

GPHHS prioritizes manuscripts that offer:

  • Clear implications for policy, practice, or health system performance

  • Strong methods and transparent reporting (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods)

  • Implementation realism (context, delivery strategies, feasibility, fidelity, sustainability)

  • Equity and ethics (attention to vulnerable populations, gender, and fairness in access)

  • System-level learning (what works, for whom, why, and under what conditions)

What We Publish

GPHHS covers the full spectrum of public health and health systems research, including (but not limited to):

Core Public Health Domains

  1. Primary Health Care & Community Health – community-based services, integrated PHC models, outreach and continuity of care, community health workforce performance

  2. Maternal, Newborn, Child & Adolescent Health (MNCAH) – life-course services, reproductive health, service integration, adolescent-friendly delivery models

  3. Communicable Diseases (HIV, TB, Malaria & Outbreaks) – prevention, diagnosis, treatment and system innovations; outbreak preparedness and response

  4. Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) & Chronic Care – integrated chronic care, multimorbidity, long-term service models, continuity and adherence systems

  5. Mental Health & Psychosocial Support – integration into PHC, community mental health services, system strategies to improve access and quality

  6. Environmental Health & WASH – water, sanitation, hygiene, environmental exposures, climate-related risks and system responses

  7. Nutrition & Public Health Nutrition – nutrition interventions, service delivery integration, malnutrition prevention, food systems and programme implementation

  8. Injury Prevention & Road Safety – injury epidemiology, trauma systems, prevention interventions, emergency response systems

  9. Occupational, School & Workplace Health – health promotion, preventive services, and policy measures within schools and workplace settings

Health Systems, Implementation, and Policy

  1. Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) – resilience, governance, system performance, and cross-cutting improvements across the building blocks

  2. Health Financing & Universal Health Coverage (UHC) – financing reforms, insurance schemes, pooling and purchasing strategies, financial risk protection

  3. Health Workforce & Service Delivery – training, retention, task-shifting, performance management, referral systems, integrated delivery models

  4. Quality Improvement & Patient Safety – clinical governance, QI measurement, patient safety interventions, structured improvement approaches

  5. Digital Health, HMIS & Data Systems – digital tools, EMRs, data quality, data use for decision-making, routine information systems strengthening

  6. Medicines, Diagnostics & Supply Chains – access to essential medicines/diagnostics, procurement systems, supply chain performance, regulation

  7. Governance, Leadership & Accountability – decentralization, leadership capacity, accountability mechanisms, regulatory frameworks, institutional performance

  8. Implementation Science & Scale-up – adaptation, fidelity, acceptability, feasibility, sustainability, scale-up pathways and learning systems

Cross-Cutting & Context-Specific Themes

  1. Equity, Gender & Vulnerable Populations – disparities in access/outcomes, disability inclusion, rights-based approaches, marginalized populations

  2. Humanitarian Health & Fragile Settings – health and systems research in conflict, displacement, and humanitarian emergencies

  3. Emergency Preparedness & Health Security – surveillance, preparedness, emergency coordination, resilience, outbreak readiness and response

Not sure if your manuscript fits?

If you are uncertain whether your paper is within scope, we encourage a brief pre-submission inquiry. Include:

  • your title,
  • an abstract (or 6–8 sentence summary),
  • study setting and design,
  • and what you want feedback on.

We will respond with guidance on fit and the best manuscript category for submission.

Article Sections (How Content Is Organised in GPHHS)

To keep the journal coherent and easy to browse—without fragmenting into many small disease-specific sections—GPHHS organises published content into the following core sections:

  1. Editorial – commissioned pieces that set direction or interpret emerging priorities (typically not externally peer reviewed)

  2. Original Research – full empirical studies (quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods; cross-sectional, cohort, case-control, epidemiological analyses)

  3. Implementation Research & Program Evaluation – real-world effectiveness, operational research, process/realist evaluation, scale-up and sustainability evidence

  4. Health Systems Research – governance, financing, workforce, service delivery models, HIS/HMIS, supply chains, quality improvement, system performance

  5. Policy Analysis & Health Reform – evidence-based policy analysis, reform evaluation, regulatory impact, comparative policy studies, data-grounded briefs

  6. Systematic Reviews & Evidence Syntheses – systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, rapid reviews following appropriate standards (e.g., PRISMA)

  7. Quality Improvement Reports – structured reports of measurable improvement work (e.g., PDSA cycles, redesign initiatives, patient safety improvements)

  8. Case Studies & Field Reports – well-documented, evidence-informed learning from districts, communities, facilities, and programmes (not anecdotal)

  9. Short Communications – concise and timely findings, outbreak/rapid operational analyses, small but important datasets with clear limitations

  10. Commentaries & Perspectives – evidence-informed viewpoints and debate pieces on pressing public health and health systems questions

What We Especially Encourage

GPHHS particularly welcomes submissions that:

  • Evaluate implementation and delivery in real-world settings (what worked, what didn’t, why, and how to improve)

  • Provide decision-relevant evidence for governments, implementers, and funders

  • Strengthen quality of care, patient safety, and service outcomes

  • Address system bottlenecks (financing, workforce, governance, data systems, supply chains)

  • Generate insights that are transferable to similar contexts (LMIC and resource-constrained settings)

What Is Typically Out of Scope

To maintain focus and quality, GPHHS generally does not prioritise:

  • Purely laboratory/bench science without clear public health or health systems relevance

  • Manuscripts that are anecdotal, descriptive without analytical value, or lacking basic methods transparency

  • Submissions that do not meet ethical requirements (e.g., missing ethics approval/consent where applicable)

  • Duplicate publications or manuscripts with substantial unattributed overlap with prior work

How Authors Should Classify Their Submission

Authors should select one primary section (and, where applicable, one or two secondary topic areas) to support discoverability and indexing. GPHHS avoids excessive micro-categories (e.g., “TB section”, “HIV section”)—instead, authors should use