Journals for Public Health, Epidemiology and Health Policy Research: SCI, SSCI, ESCI, Scopus and EI Options, With and Without Article Charges

Public health is the field where the gap between what a paper costs and what an author can pay is widest. The two Lancet titles on this page charge 5,780 US dollars. Several of the strongest journals in the field charge nothing at all. And a great deal of the world's public health research is done by people with no grant, working in ministries, district health offices and teaching hospitals, who are expected to publish anyway.

Read that the right way round. In public health, paying is a route, not the route, and the free routes include journals that sit above most of the paid ones. The tables below start with the conference options and then run from Scopus upward.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Two quartiles exist and they measure different things. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago, inside a Scopus subject category. The JCR quartile comes from Clarivate, inside a Web of Science category, using the impact factor. Public health sits in both a science and a social science category, so many titles here carry SCIE and SSCI listings at once, which is useful when a rule names only one.

The index tier still matters more than either. An ESCI journal shows an impact factor and a quartile that look exactly like an SCIE one on screen, so an ESCI Q1 will not satisfy a rule asking for SCIE or SSCI. Where the tier is not recorded, the tables say so rather than guess. Settling this before the cover letter is the first step in Journal Submission Preparation.

Indexed conference routes in public health and epidemiology

Thin, and the honest answer is that this is a journal-first discipline. Most public health congresses publish abstracts in journal supplements, which is a useful record but not an indexed article. Two series in this subject carry genuine indexed proceedings.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

If your work is not informatics, air quality or German biometry, treat the conference route here as a way to get feedback and plan on a journal for the record.

Scopus-indexed options, Q3, where a first paper usually lands

A modest band, three of the four charging no APC. For a scholar who needs a dated indexed record rather than a nine-month queue, this is the realistic starting point, and planning a sequence is the Mentorship Program.

Scopus-indexed options, Q1 and Q2

Several of these carry a Scopus Q1 with a lower Web of Science quartile, which is the mismatch described above. The AI Journal Finder matches an abstract against them in seconds.

EI Compendex indexed journals

One match in this subject, on the medical informatics side of the field.

Diamond open access: public health journals that charge nothing

The most important table on this page for an unfunded author. Three of these carry a Web of Science impact factor, and one sits at Scopus Q1.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Gold open access journals for public health research

Published charges, and the widest paid range in this series. Waiver schemes apply to most of these, so the list price is not always the price you pay.

Web of Science options: SCIE, SSCI and ESCI

The senior journals of the field. Every title in this table is subscription or hybrid, so publishing in them costs nothing unless you choose the open access licence.

Publishing without a grant: funding and affiliation in public health

This field asks more of unfunded authors than any other, because the work is often done inside health services rather than universities. Six things decide whether the charge question is a problem or not.

1. Choose the route before the journal. If there is no money, start from the Diamond table and the subscription titles, which together include SSCI Q2 and SCIE Q1 journals. Both routes cost nothing, and neither is a lesser venue.
2. The corresponding author decides the waiver. Waivers are assessed against the corresponding author's institution and country, not the first author's. On a multi-country team, put the author in an eligible country in that role, provided they are genuinely willing to handle correspondence.
3. Ask before submitting, not after acceptance. Most publishers will confirm a waiver or discount in writing at enquiry stage. After acceptance you have lost your leverage and the paper is committed.
4. A ministry or district health office is a real affiliation. Write it as it is, with the city and country. Editors in public health are used to authors from services rather than universities, and several journals here are published by exactly such bodies.
5. Independent researchers write "Independent Researcher". With the city and country, never a former employer's name and never blank. It is accepted in this field.
6. Write the charge into the next grant. Most funders allow publication costs as a line item. A single line in the budget removes this problem for the following three years.

Where the paper needs a co-author with data access or a second site, that is Collaboration Matching, and the preparation side is Manuscript Preparation Support.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

Which public health journals accept a master's or PhD student as first author?

All of them. No journal in the tables above sets a seniority rule for first authorship, and student-led papers appear regularly across the field, including in the senior SCIE and SSCI titles.

What editors do check is that the authorship reflects real contribution and that someone on the team can answer methodological questions. A student first author with a supervisor as a named co-author is the standard shape, and it raises no flags.

Do I need a supervisor as co-author to publish in public health research?

Not as a rule, and adding one who did not contribute is itself a breach of authorship criteria. What matters is that every named author meets the contribution standard the journal states, usually the four ICMJE criteria in this field.

In practice a supervisor who designed the study, supplied the data access or revised the manuscript qualifies and should be included. One who only signed a form does not, and gift authorship is treated seriously in medical journals.

Can I publish a public health paper without an institutional affiliation?

Yes. Write "Independent Researcher" with your city and country in the affiliation field, and never leave it blank or use a former employer's name without permission. Public health journals see this often and it does not affect review.

Two practical difficulties follow. Article charge waivers are assessed against an institution and country, so an independent author should aim at the Diamond table or the subscription titles. And ethics approval needs a committee, which usually means partnering with a service or university before data collection rather than after.

Which public health journals accept independent researchers?

Every journal on this page accepts submissions from authors without a university post, because the field is full of clinicians, programme managers and ministry staff who publish from service roles. The Pan American Journal of Public Health, Global Health Science and Practice, Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives and Discover Public Health are all free and all routinely publish authors from health services.

The limiting factor is rarely the affiliation. It is data access and ethics approval, both of which usually need an institutional partner, so secure that before the study rather than at submission.

Is this public health journal predatory?

Judge it on four checks rather than a feeling: whether the ISSN is in the live Scopus source list or the Web of Science Master Journal List, whether the fee is published before submission, whether the editorial board are real people with verifiable affiliations, and whether the review process described is realistic. Failing two or more is enough to walk away.

This field has a fifth check. Verify the journal in PubMed and MEDLINE as well, because many clinical and ministry committees weigh MEDLINE indexing above Scopus, and a journal can be in one and not the other.

What is a hijacked journal, and how do I spot a cloned public health journal site?

A hijacked journal is a fake website that copies a real journal's title, ISSN, cover and editorial board, then collects submissions and fees the genuine publisher never sees. The reliable test is the route you arrive by: open the journal from the publisher's own domain or from the index record, never from a link in an invitation email.

Public health is targeted with a particular trick, names that borrow the authority of a health body, using words like global, international, WHO-sounding phrases or a ministry's name. Check who actually publishes it on the index record, not on the journal's own about page.

How much does it cost to publish a public health paper in an indexed journal?

Anywhere from nothing to 5,780 US dollars, the widest spread in this series. Nine titles charge nothing, including one at Scopus Q1 with an impact factor, and every journal in the Web of Science table except one is subscription, which also charges no APC.

Where a fee applies, the paid range runs from about 1,100 to 5,780 dollars, and waiver schemes cut it sharply for authors in eligible countries. Never treat the list price as the price without asking the publisher first.

What is the difference between ESCI and SSCI when my university asks for a Web of Science paper?

Both are part of the Web of Science Core Collection, but they are different indexes with different selection bars. SSCI and SCIE are the long-established citation indexes, while ESCI is the emerging sources index, which covers journals that have passed quality screening but not the full citation criteria.

On screen they look identical, because ESCI journals now carry impact factors and quartiles too. If your rule says Web of Science without naming an index, an ESCI paper usually qualifies. If it names SSCI or SCIE, it does not, whatever the impact factor. Public health has an advantage here: many of its journals are dual listed in SCIE and SSCI, which satisfies either wording.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. In public health two further checks are routine: whether the reporting checklist is attached, and whether the ethics statement names a committee and a reference number. Missing either returns the paper without review. Run your own overlap check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and settle language and formatting through Manuscript Editing.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it on formatting. Subject-matched PhD editors, milestone payments, and the author stays the author throughout. The revision round is Review & Response Support, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about publication fees

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。