About the Journal

The International Journal of Maternal and Child Health and AIDS (IJMA) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focused on maternal, neonatal, child, adolescent, reproductive, sexual, and public health, including HIV/AIDS as it affects maternal and child health (MCH) populations. The journal contributes to globally relevant scholarship on health outcomes, health equity, health systems, implementation, policy, and programs affecting women, children, adolescents, families, and HIV-affected maternal and child health communities.

The journal publishes a variety of papers that seek to investigate how the social determinants of health and communicable and non-communicable diseases impact the MCH populations at the local, national, and global levels. The journal publishes papers that can be applied to global maternal and child health practices, programs, and policies, especially those that contribute to local and international efforts to improve the health of MCH populations and those affected and impacted by HIV/AIDS.

IJMA welcomes manuscripts that discuss the application of research results to global maternal and child health programs, policy, and practice. IJMA is a development-oriented journal, thus submissions from authors in, or research on, MCH and HIV/AIDS issues affecting developing (low and middle-income) countries are welcomed.

Aims & Scope

The journal is organized into two primary sections:

Section 1: General Maternal and Child Health (MCH)

This section publishes research on maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health unrelated to HIV/AIDS. Topics include, but are not limited to the following:

Maternal health, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum outcomes
Neonatal and child morbidity and mortality
Nutrition, growth, and development
Reproductive, sexual, and adolescent health
Mental health and psychosocial well-being
Health systems, service delivery, and policy affecting MCH populations
Social determinants of maternal and child health

Section 2: HIV/AIDS in Maternal and Child Health (HIV/AIDS in MCH)

This section publishes research that focuses exclusively on the impact of HIV/AIDS on maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent populations. Submissions must demonstrate clear relevance to MCH outcomes.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT)
HIV in pregnancy and postpartum periods
Pediatric and adolescent HIV care and outcomes
HIV-related maternal and child morbidity and mortality
HIV stigma, access to care, and health equity in MCH populations
Integration of HIV services into maternal and child health systems
Policy and program evaluations affecting HIV-exposed or HIV-affected families

Manuscripts focused solely on HIV virology, immunology, or laboratory science without MCH relevance are outside the journal’s scope.

Journal Imperatives

IJMA provides a focused scholarly platform for research on maternal, neonatal, child, adolescent, reproductive, sexual, and public health, including the impact of HIV/AIDS on these populations.

Maternal and child health remains a core measure of health system performance, social equity, and population well-being. Despite advances in clinical care, public health practice, health technology, and data systems, major disparities persist across countries, communities, and health systems. HIV/AIDS also remains highly relevant to maternal and child health, affecting pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum care, infant feeding, pediatric and adolescent health, family well-being, stigma, access to care, and health equity.

IJMA publishes rigorous and ethically conducted scholarship that advances evidence, informs policy, strengthens programs, and improves outcomes for maternal, neonatal, child, adolescent, and HIV-affected populations. The journal welcomes original research, systematic reviews, program evaluations, policy analyses, implementation science, and scholarly commentary from diverse geographic, socioeconomic, and health system contexts.

The journal’s two-section structure reflects its distinctive contribution: one section focuses on general maternal and child health, and the other provides a dedicated forum for research on HIV/AIDS in maternal and child health populations. Through this focus, IJMA seeks to serve researchers, clinicians, policymakers, program leaders, and public health practitioners working to improve health outcomes and equity for women, children, adolescents, families, and communities worldwide.

Audience

The journal’s audience includes researchers, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in the fields of maternal health, child health, women’s health, pediatric health, sexual and reproductive health, family health, maternal HIV/AIDS, child/pediatric HIV/AIDS, People living with HIV/AIDS, special populations, etc.

Review Process

IJMA has a highly rigorous peer-review process that ensures that manuscripts are scientifically accurate, relevant, novel, and important. Authors are required to disclose all conflicts, affiliations, and financial associations such that the published content is not biased.

Review Timeline
The Editors of the journal recognize the need for rapid dissemination of scientific communication. The median time from submission to first editorial feedback is approximately 4-6 weeks.

Editorial Team

The editorial board comprises a global panel of experts from various disciplines related to MCH, including medical and allied health sciences, to provide their expertise and guidance in maintaining the clarity of content and focus of the journal.

About the Editors

Gopal K. Singh, PhD, MS, MSc, DPS
Department of Population and Public Health Sciences,
Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, California, USA

Emails: gsingh@mchandaids.org, EditorinChief@mchandaids.org

Hamisu M. Salihu, MD, PhD
Formerly Professor & Center Director,
Center of Excellence in Health Equity, Training and Research,
Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, USA Now,
Director General, Pfizer-Kano Independent Research Center Trust, Kano, Nigeria
Emails: hamisu.salihu@gmail.com, Editorinchief@mchandaids.org

Romuladus E. Azuine, DrPH, MPH, MA, RN
The Center for Global Health and Health Policy,
Global Health and Education Projects, Inc., Maryland, USA
Email: RAzuine@mchandaids.org

Facts About the Journal

This is a continuously published, peer-reviewed journal that follows a single-blind review process. Its open-access model ensures worldwide visibility and boosts authors’ prominence in medical research.

Publication Partnerships

The journal is published in partnership with the following institutions:

Pfizer Kano Independent Research Center Trust,

Office of the Director-General / Department of Epidemiology and Population Health,

Kano, Nigeria

International Institute for Biomedical, Tissue Engineering
and Regenerative Medicine Research (IIBTERMR),

Faculty of Health Sciences and Technology,

David Umahi Federal University of Technology,
Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Authors or organizations interested in exploring a publication partnership should contact the editorial office at submissions@mchandaids.org.

Journal Ethics

IJMA is committed to meeting and upholding the standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. The journal follows and complies with publishing standards established by the following industry associations:

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE),
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and
World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

These standards provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements. For a summary of our specific policies regarding duplicate publication, conflicts of interest, patient consent, etc., please visit our Ethical Guidelines section.

Plagiarism Policy

The journal uses plagiarism-checking software (iThenticate) on the Editor’s and Reviewer’s panels in the manuscript management system to check and control plagiarism for each article. Any manuscript that is found to have plagiarism is rejected.

Archival Policy

The journal uses NIH PubMed Central as its primary third-party repository. Additionally, all published articles are deposited in PORTICO. IJMA's publisher is a member of Crossref. All our articles are assigned a DOI number tracked by Crossref, https://crossref.org

Open Access Publication and Creative Commons Licensing

IJMA is an open-access journal. Manuscripts published are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0), which allows others to remix, transform, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given. The new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

While advertisements are crucial to this journal to be able to keep all content free for everyone, ethical considerations are in place to ensure the integrity of the journal and its content is not biased or influenced by the advertisements.

“Pop-up” and “banner” advertisements appear at a fixed location on the page and do not interfere with the manuscript in any form.

The Editorial Board has full and final approval over the content of all advertisements.

Advertisers will never be shown any manuscripts or other content prior to publication.

Publisher

The Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. (GHEP), Maryland, USA, is the publisher of the journal. GHEP is a fully registered and approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (U.S. Department of the Treasury), the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation, and the Comptroller of the State of Maryland.

Established in 2011, GHEP's mission is to eliminate health and educational disparities by addressing the social determinants of health (SDOH). The journal supports GHEP's commitment to advancing global health, public health, and health equity through high-quality research, education, publishing, and community engagement. Through the journal, GHEP provides an open-access platform for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to disseminate evidence that informs programs, practice, and policy worldwide. GHEP is particularly committed to the equitable and affordable publication of research originating from developing countries worldwide.

Learn more about GHEP and its work at https://globalhealthprojects.org/publications/

Editorial Independence

The Publisher is committed to editorial independence, editorial freedom, transparency, and the integrity of the scholarly record. The journal follows recognized guidance on editorial independence and conflicts of interest, including guidance from the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and others.

These policies include:

Conflict of Interest in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals (WAME);
The Relationship Between Journal Editors-in-Chief and Owners (formerly titled Editorial Independence) (WAME);
Recommendation D: Journal Owners and Editorial Freedom (ICMJE), and
Editorial Independence (COPE).

The Publisher (GHEP) provides publishing, administrative, technical, production, financial, indexing, archiving, and operational support. The Publisher’s leadership does not serve as the final decision-maker for manuscripts and does not control peer review or editorial outcomes.

The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication. Editorial decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief, designated editors, and the editorial board in accordance with the journal’s aims and scope, peer review policy, conflict-of-interest policy, and publication ethics policies.

The Publisher, its officers, directors, executives, employees, contractors, and representatives do not interfere, directly or indirectly, in the evaluation, peer review, selection, acceptance, rejection, scheduling, editing, correction, retraction, or publication timing of individual articles. Editorial decisions are based on the validity, quality, originality, ethical soundness, relevance, and importance of the work to the journal’s readers and not on the commercial, financial, institutional, reputational, or strategic interests of the publisher or any sponsor, advertiser, donor, partner, or affiliated organization.

Separation of Publisher and Editorial Roles

The Publisher is responsible for supporting publisher-side functions, including journal infrastructure, website hosting, production, copyediting coordination, metadata, DOI registration, archiving, indexing support, financial administration, and general publishing operations.

The Editor-in-Chief and editorial team are responsible for editorial functions, including editorial policy, manuscript assessment, editor assignment, reviewer selection, peer review oversight, editorial decisions, appeals, corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, and publication timing of accepted content.

Conflicts of Interest and Recusal

The journal recognizes that the Publisher-affiliated individuals, including members of the Publisher leadership, may have scholarly or professional expertise relevant to the journal’s scope. However, expertise does not eliminate the need to manage actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest arising from publisher ownership, governance, executive, or management roles.

Publisher-affiliated individuals may provide non-binding subject-matter or strategic advice where appropriate; however, they do not serve as final decision-makers for manuscripts and do not control peer review or editorial outcomes. They must recuse themselves from editorial decisions, editor appointments, appeals, complaints, special issue decisions, and manuscript matters where their Publisher role or other relationships could reasonably be perceived to influence judgment.

Manuscripts involving the Publisher, its officers, staff, programs, data, Publisher-funded activities, or close collaborators of the Publisher leadership are assigned to an independent editor with no relevant relationship to the Publisher or the authors.

The Publisher requires disclosure and management of actual, potential, and perceived conflicts of interest involving editors, editorial board members, reviewers, authors, publisher representatives, sponsors, and partner organizations.

Editors do not handle manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest, including manuscripts submitted by themselves, close collaborators, institutional colleagues, supervisees, recent coauthors, the Publisher's officers or staff, the Publisher-affiliated programs, or individuals or organizations with which they have a relevant relationship.

Manuscripts involving the Publisher, its officers, staff, programs, data, and funded activities, or close collaborators of the Publisher's leadership are assigned to an independent editor with no relevant relationship to the Publisher or the authors and undergo the journal’s standard independent peer review process.

Independent Oversight

The Publisher maintains an independent editorial governance and oversight mechanism to safeguard editorial independence and manage conflicts of interest. This mechanism may review concerns involving editorial independence, publisher interference, conflicts of interest, appeals, editor recusals, and disputes between the publisher and the editorial office.

Oversight members must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from matters in which they have an actual, potential, or perceived conflict. Oversight does not replace the Editor-in-Chief in routine editorial decision-making but serves to protect the integrity and independence of the journal’s editorial processes.

Advertising, Sponsored Content, and Supplements

The Editor-in-Chief has final editorial authority over journal content, including editorials, supplements, special issues, sponsored content, corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions. Advertising, sponsorship, donations, partnerships, publication fees, waiver decisions, and institutional relationships do not influence editorial decisions.

Advertisements, sponsored content, and supplements must be clearly identified and must not compromise editorial independence.

Protection of Editorial Freedom

Editors are free to publish responsible, evidence-based editorial views, including views that may differ from the positions, priorities, or interests of the Publisher, sponsors, advertisers, donors, partner organizations, or other stakeholders. Editors will not be penalized, removed, or disadvantaged for good-faith editorial decisions made in accordance with journal policy and publication ethics standards.