Aims and scope
Journal of Respiratory Diseases
The journal publishes research on the diseases and disorders of the respiratory system, across the whole range its title describes — from the mechanics of a single breath to the distribution of lung disease in populations.
The map of inquiry
Five territories, one respiratory system
Respiratory medicine draws on several disciplines working on the same organ. The journal is organized around that reality, and considers work in each of the following territories.
I
Airways, parenchyma and the thoracic field
The structural diseases of the lung and the tissue they act on.
Asthma · Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · Chronic bronchitis · Bronchiectasis · Cystic fibrosis · Pulmonary fibrosis and other interstitial lung disease · Thoracic oncology, including screening and early detection
II
Infection, circulation and the pleural space
Disease reaching the lung through pathogens, perfusion and the space around it.
Pneumonia · Tuberculosis · Viral respiratory disease · Pulmonary vascular disease and pulmonary hypertension · Pleural disease and effusion
III
Breathing, sleep and critical illness
Respiration as a measured function, and the point at which it fails.
Respiratory physiology · Lung-function measurement and interpretation · Ventilatory mechanics · Sleep-related breathing disorders · Acute respiratory distress syndrome · Respiratory failure and ventilatory support
IV
Investigation, intervention and treatment
How respiratory disease is found, acted on and managed over time.
Diagnostics and thoracic imaging · Biomarkers and monitoring · Bronchoscopy and interventional pulmonology · Pleural procedures · Therapeutics and devices · Pulmonary rehabilitation · Lung transplantation
V
Populations, exposure and prevention
Respiratory disease as it is distributed, caused and prevented at scale.
Respiratory epidemiology · Occupational and environmental exposure, including air pollution · Tobacco and smoking cessation · Pediatric and adult respiratory medicine · Health services, outcomes and policy · Measurement and analytic methods applied to respiratory outcomes
Eligibility
What brings a manuscript into scope
A manuscript is in scope when its research question, analytical focus, interpretation or principal contribution materially advances understanding of respiratory disease or health, including the physiology of breathing where it informs that subject. What decides fit is the contribution the work makes, not the setting it was gathered in. Recruiting participants who have respiratory disease, including a breathing-related variable, or recording a respiratory measurement counts toward scope only where the respiratory question is substantive to the study's own purpose.
That contribution takes many forms, and the journal considers each of them on the same footing.
- Respiratory physiologyFoundational and integrative work on how breathing, gas exchange and respiratory mechanics operate, where it informs respiratory health or disease.
- Mechanism and pathophysiologyHow respiratory disease begins, progresses and injures the lung.
- Methods and measurementDevelopment, validation and comparison of the measurements and analyses respiratory research depends on.
- Clinical and translational studiesWork carried out in patients, and the research that carries findings toward and back from the clinic.
- Epidemiology and population healthThe distribution, determinants and burden of respiratory disease in defined populations.
- Prevention and risk factorsExposure, susceptibility, and the measures that reduce respiratory disease before it develops.
- Health services, implementation and policyHow respiratory care is organized, delivered, evaluated and governed, and the outcomes that follow.
Every study design is considered on the same footing — experimental, observational, descriptive, qualitative, health-services and methodological — and well-conducted confirmatory and negative findings are assessed on their conduct and reporting. Contributions from physiology, imaging, data science, occupational health, public health and allied fields are welcome wherever the respiratory contribution is substantive.
The boundary
Where the scope ends
The boundary follows from that test: the respiratory contribution must be central to the work. A study in which respiratory disease appears incidentally — as one variable among many in work whose purpose lies elsewhere, and which reaches no respiratory finding of its own — is a better fit in a journal of that field.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Article types
What the journal publishes
- Original researchFull reports of original studies, including clinical trials and other prospective and retrospective designs.
- Reviews, including systematic reviewsSyntheses of existing evidence, reported against the relevant reporting guideline.
- Methods and protocolsDiagnostic, measurement and analytic methods, and study protocols, with the benchmarking that supports them.
- Short communicationsConcise reports of findings that stand on their own without a full-length article.
- Case reportsIndividual presentations with diagnostic, therapeutic or mechanistic value to practice.
Manuscript preparation requirements for each type are set out in the instructions for authors.