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About PLoS Medicine

PLoS Medicine believes that medical research is an international public resource. The journal provides an open-access venue for important, peer-reviewed advances in all disciplines. With the ultimate aim of improving human health, we encourage research and comment that address the global burden of disease.

PLoS Medicine (eISSN 1549-1676; ISSN-1549-1277) is an open-access, peer-reviewed medical journal published monthly online by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a nonprofit organization. The inaugural issue was published on 19 October 2004.

Open Access

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) to all works we publish. Under the CCAL, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in PLoS journals, so long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

Publication Charges

To provide open access, PLoS journals use a business model in which our expenses—including those of peer review, journal production, and online hosting and archiving—are recovered in part by charging a publication fee to the authors or research sponsors for each article they publish. For PLoS Medicine the publication fee is US$2750. Authors who are affiliated with one of our Institutional Members are eligible for a discount on this fee.

We offer a complete or partial fee waiver for authors who do not have funds to cover publication fees. Editors and reviewers have no access to payment information, and hence inability to pay will not influence the decision to publish a paper.

For further information, see our Publication Fee FAQ.

About the Public Library of Science

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information about PLoS, visit www.plos.org.

Scope

PLoS Medicine is an international, multidisciplinary medical journal that publishes outstanding studies that substantially enhance the understanding of human health and disease. We aim to promote translation of basic research into clinical investigation, and of clinical evidence into practice. We encourage papers that cross disciplines. We give priority to the publication of papers reporting the results of research on human participants or samples. We publish occasional studies in animal models when they report outstanding research findings that are highly clinically relevant. See our editorial for more information on such studies.

Measures of impact

There are a number of ways of measuring a journal's impact, including the influence it has on health policy, how widely read its papers are, and how frequently the papers are cited by other researchers. The impact factor measured by Thomson Scientific provides one measure of how often a journal's papers have been cited in that year. PLoS Medicine's 2006 impact factor is 13.8. For a wider discussion of impact factors, see the June 2006 Editorial.

Outstanding primary Research Articles in all areas of medicine; from clinically directed basic science to epidemiology and clinical trials.
All research articles are accompanied by an Editors' Summary—a comprehensible summary for physicians in all specialties, as well as patients and their advocates.
Case Reports convey a useful clinical lesson on cases that a general physician might expect to encounter.
The Editorial is written by the PLoS Medicine editors on a topic of general medical interest.
The PLoS Medicine Debate discusses important but controversial issues in clinical practice, public health policy, or health in general. Debates will be commissioned from two or more authors with differing points of view.
Neglected Diseases articles either bring a particular disease to the attention of a general audience, or they discuss a novel strategy for approaching neglected health issues in general.
The Health in Action section provides a place where groups or individuals who are not represented regularly in a medical journal have a forum to describe the important issues from their perspective. Authors might include patient advocacy groups, healthcare workers, or non-governmental organizations.
Policy Forum provides a platform for health policy makers from around the world to discuss the challenges and opportunities in improving health care to their constituencies.
Essays are opinion pieces on a topic of broad interest to a general medical audience.
Perspectives are commissioned from an expert and discuss the clinical practice or public health implications of a published study. The original publication must be freely available online.
Research in Translation articles discuss a particular drug, treatment, or public health intervention in the context of translation from early research to clinical research, or clinical evidence to practice.
Learning Forum articles are commissioned by our educational advisors. The section provides a forum for learning about an important clinical problem that is relevant to a general medical audience.
Student Forum essays give a medical student perspective on any topic related to medicine, health, or medical education.

We strongly encourage presubmission inquiries on all article types, other than reader responses about published papers which can be submitted directly via the Web page of the paper. To submit an inquiry, please log on or register at our online submission site and then click the link "Submit Presubmission Inquiry."

PLoS Medicine encourages reader responses on articles published in the journal. Please submit your comments by visiting the relevant article and clicking on the link "Write a Response" in the right-hand navigation bar. Please be concise and do not exceed 750 words, including any references. The reader responses are reviewed by staff and will be posted within three working days of receipt. View the most recent reader responses in our archive.