Focus and Scope

Focus and Scope

Journal of Public Health and Pharmacy

Journal Focus

The Journal of Public Health and Pharmacy (JPHP) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original research and rigorous evidence syntheses addressing public health and the contribution of pharmacy to population health.

The journal aims to advance knowledge that supports disease prevention, health education, health-system improvement, healthcare administration, reproductive health, economic evaluation, rational medicine use, medication safety, pharmaceutical policy, and pharmacy-based public-health practice.

JPHP prioritizes manuscripts that demonstrate scientific originality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, analytical depth, transparent reporting, and clear implications for public-health research, pharmacy practice, health policy, healthcare services, or population outcomes.

Scope requirement: Every submitted manuscript must demonstrate a direct and substantive contribution to public health, population health, healthcare delivery, or the role of pharmacy in improving population health. Merely mentioning public-health or pharmacy implications in the Discussion or Conclusion is not sufficient to establish scope relevance.

Journal Scope

JPHP welcomes manuscripts in the following areas and closely related interdisciplinary fields.

1. Epidemiology

Research on the distribution, frequency, patterns, determinants, surveillance, risk factors, prevention, control, and burden of communicable and noncommunicable diseases in populations.

2. Health Education and Behavioral Science

Health literacy, health education, health communication, behavioral and psychosocial determinants, attitudes, perceptions, health-seeking behavior, preventive behavior, medication adherence, community participation, and evaluation of behavior-change interventions.

3. Environmental Health and Occupational Safety

Environmental exposures, sanitation, pollution, climate-related health risks, occupational hazards, workplace safety, worker health, risk assessment, risk communication, and interventions to prevent environmentally and occupationally related diseases and injuries.

4. Health Administration and Policy

Health-system governance, healthcare administration, service delivery, access to care, quality and safety of care, health financing, health-workforce management, program implementation, universal health coverage, and the development and evaluation of health policies and services.

5. Reproductive Health

Reproductive and sexual health, maternal health, child health, family planning, adolescent reproductive health, reproductive-health services, reproductive rights, preventive interventions, and related public-health policies.

6. Health Economics and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Economic evaluation of public-health, healthcare, and pharmaceutical interventions, including cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, cost-benefit, budget-impact analysis, economic burden, affordability, resource allocation, and economic efficiency.

7. The Role of Pharmacy in Public Health

Pharmaceutical contributions to population health, access to essential medicines, rational medicine use, prescribing and dispensing practices, medication adherence, medication safety, pharmacovigilance, community-pharmacy services, pharmaceutical care, pharmaceutical policy, antimicrobial stewardship, and pharmacist-led public-health interventions.

Research Approaches

JPHP accepts quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies when the design is appropriate to the research question and the manuscript demonstrates clear relevance to public health, healthcare services, pharmacy practice, pharmaceutical policy, or population health.

Relevant research approaches include:

  • Cross-sectional, cohort, and case-control studies
  • Randomized and nonrandomized intervention studies
  • Quasi-experimental and natural-experiment designs
  • Implementation research
  • Program, policy, and service evaluation
  • Community-based participatory research
  • Qualitative and mixed-methods studies
  • Health-system and health-services research
  • Pharmacy-practice and pharmaceutical-care research
  • Medication-use evaluation and drug-utilization studies
  • Pharmacovigilance and medication-safety studies
  • Economic evaluation and pharmacoeconomic research
  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
  • Scoping reviews with a clear methodological rationale

Priority Manuscripts

JPHP gives priority to manuscripts that:

  • Address a clearly defined and important public-health, healthcare, or medicine-use problem
  • Present a meaningful scientific, policy, service, or population-health contribution
  • Use an appropriate and sufficiently rigorous research design
  • Move beyond simple local description or prevalence reporting
  • Evaluate interventions, programs, services, implementation strategies, or policies
  • Address medication safety, medicine access, rational medicine use, or pharmaceutical-care outcomes
  • Address health inequity or vulnerable populations
  • Use theory or an explicit conceptual framework where appropriate
  • Provide implications that are transferable beyond a single institution or location
  • Follow the appropriate EQUATOR reporting guideline
  • Comply fully with research and publication ethics

Studies Considered Only Under Specific Conditions

Clinical, biomedical, laboratory, pharmaceutical, formulation, pharmacological, nutritional, diagnostic, molecular, or environmental-measurement studies are considered only when they include a clear public-health, healthcare-service, medication-safety, pharmaceutical-care, policy, access, implementation, economic, or population-health component.

Such studies must make a direct contribution to at least one of the following:

  • Disease prevention or population-risk reduction
  • Health education, health literacy, or behavioral change
  • Medication safety or pharmacovigilance
  • Rational medicine use or medication adherence
  • Access to medicines or pharmaceutical policy
  • Pharmaceutical care or community-pharmacy practice
  • Health systems, healthcare administration, or service delivery
  • Implementation, program evaluation, or population outcomes
  • Economic evaluation or cost-effectiveness analysis
The presence of a public-health, pharmacy-practice, policy, or population-health recommendation in the Discussion or Conclusion does not by itself make a clinically, chemically, pharmacologically, or laboratory-focused study suitable for JPHP.

Manuscripts Outside the Journal Scope

JPHP generally does not consider:

  • Purely clinical case reports or case series
  • Clinical treatment comparisons without a public-health, healthcare-service, medication-safety, policy, or population-health component
  • Laboratory, molecular, genetic, microbiological, animal, or biomarker studies without direct public-health or pharmaceutical-care relevance
  • Basic pharmaceutical chemistry studies without demonstrated healthcare or population-health relevance
  • Drug-formulation or product-development studies limited to physicochemical, stability, dissolution, or laboratory-performance outcomes
  • Pharmacological screening or drug-efficacy studies without implications for medication safety, access, policy, implementation, or population health
  • Food-product development or laboratory-based nutrition studies without a health intervention, service, policy, or population-health component
  • Pure diagnostic-performance studies without screening, service-delivery, implementation, or population-health implications
  • Environmental measurements that do not assess human exposure, health risk, prevention, communication, or intervention
  • Community-service or outreach reports without a defined research design and evaluative method
  • Simple descriptive surveys that do not provide sufficient analytical, theoretical, policy, service, or practical contribution
  • Institutional satisfaction studies without broader healthcare or public-health significance
  • Bibliometric studies without a clearly justified contribution to public-health, pharmacy, policy, or research strategy
  • Narrative reviews without a transparent search, selection, appraisal, and synthesis method
  • Manuscripts outside the stated scope, regardless of methodological quality

Geographic and International Relevance

JPHP welcomes research from Indonesia and other countries. Studies conducted in a single locality, healthcare facility, pharmacy, institution, or community are eligible when the research question, design, analysis, interpretation, or implications contribute knowledge that is relevant beyond the immediate study setting.

The journal particularly encourages research from low- and middle-income settings, international collaborations, multicenter studies, comparative research, and studies addressing public-health, pharmacy, medicine-use, or healthcare challenges of regional or global significance.

Target Readership

JPHP is intended for public-health researchers, pharmacists, pharmaceutical-care practitioners, healthcare professionals, epidemiologists, health-service researchers, policymakers, health administrators, educators, community-health practitioners, regulators, and postgraduate students working in public health, pharmacy, pharmaceutical policy, medication safety, healthcare delivery, and related interdisciplinary fields.

Article Types

JPHP currently considers Original Research Articles and rigorous Review Articles that comply with the journal’s methodological, ethical, and reporting requirements.

View Article Types

Editorial Scope Screening

Every submission undergoes an initial editorial assessment before external peer review. Editors evaluate:

  • Alignment with the Focus and Scope
  • Appropriateness of the selected article type
  • Originality and significance of the research question
  • Methodological and analytical adequacy
  • Ethical and reporting compliance
  • Quality and completeness of the required submission files
  • Potential contribution to public-health research, pharmacy practice, healthcare policy, services, or population outcomes

Manuscripts that fall outside the journal scope, use an unsupported article type, or do not demonstrate a sufficient scientific, public-health, pharmacy-practice, healthcare, or population-level contribution may be declined without external peer review.