Preventive Medicine Reports: Guide to Scope & APC

Preventive Medicine Reports is a peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal published by Elsevier focusing on disease prevention, health promotion, epidemiology, and public health. Established in 2014 as the gold open-access companion to Preventive Medicine, all articles are freely accessible online under Creative Commons licensing upon payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC).

What It Is

Preventive Medicine Reports (E-ISSN: 2211-3355) is an international scholarly journal publishing empirical public health findings. Launched in 2014 by Elsevier Inc., it provides an open-access venue for studies addressing health promotion, risk reduction, and disease prevention across diverse populations. Unlike traditional hybrid journals that place research behind subscription paywalls, this serial operates entirely under gold open access.

The journal is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scopus, and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI, Web of Science Core Collection). In addition, all articles undergo full-text archiving in PubMed Central (PMC), ensuring inclusion in public biomedical databases. In the National Library of Medicine Catalog (NLM ID: 101643766), its indexing status is recorded as a remote electronic serial, meaning individual papers appear in PubMed searches through PMC deposit rather than full MEDLINE core indexing. Understanding this distinction is critical for evaluating faculty publication requirements, as explained in our guide to PubMed and MEDLINE indexing standards.

Who Runs It and What It Covers

Preventive Medicine Reports is owned and published by Elsevier Inc. The journal is led by Editor-in-Chief Professor Luisa N. Borrell of the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, supported by an international board of associate editors and peer reviewers in epidemiology, health policy, and behavioral medicine.

The journal scope covers prevention-oriented research, welcoming:

• Disease Prevention: Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of chronic conditions, infectious diseases, and behavioral disorders.
• Health Promotion: Community interventions, physical activity initiatives, nutritional programs, and health education campaigns.
• Epidemiology and Demography: Population-level surveillance, social determinants of health, health disparities, and environmental risk analysis.
• Public Health Practice: Program evaluations, healthcare access assessments, and implementation science.
• Empirical Building Blocks: Null findings, methodological reports, pilot interventions, and short communications providing foundational data for broader studies.

Accepted formats include original research papers, short communications, review articles, and study protocols. Bibliographic records in Crossref and PubMed Central show the journal has published over 3,500 open-access articles since 2014, averaging 300 to 450 articles annually. Submitted manuscripts undergo ethical screening through Crossref Similarity Check (iThenticate via the Elsevier Publishing Ethics Resource Kit) prior to review, following standard benchmarks for evaluating peer-reviewed references and Crossref metadata tracking.

How to Search or Use It

Researchers and authors interact with the journal through ScienceDirect and the Editorial Manager submission portal using these practical steps:

1. Access the ScienceDirect Portal: Visit the official journal page on ScienceDirect (sciencedirect.com/journal/preventive-medicine-reports). The interface provides tabs for “Articles and issues”, “About”, “Publish”, and “Order journal”.
2. Browse Recent Issues: Select “Articles and issues” to browse volumes chronologically. Readers can click “Latest issue” for newly published articles or “Special issues” for themed collections on targeted public health topics.
3. Search Within the Journal: Locate the “Search in this journal” field at the top of the page. Enter keywords, author names, or MeSH terms, then execute the search to view relevant articles.
4. Filter Search Results: On the results page, use the left-hand panel to narrow records by “Year”, “Article type” (such as Research article or Short communication), and open-access license. Order results by “Relevance” or “Date”.
5. Retrieve Full-Text Articles: Select any article title to open the full HTML version with hyperlinked references, figures, and downloadable tables. Click “View PDF” to open or save the print layout.
6. Export Citations: Click the “Export” button below the article title to download citation metadata in RIS, BibTeX, or text format for reference management tools like Mendeley or EndNote.
7. Submit a Manuscript: Submitting authors select “Submit your article” on the top banner, redirecting to Elsevier Editorial Manager platform (editorialmanager.com/pmedr/) to sign in with Elsevier or ORCID credentials and upload submission files.

Strengths and Limits

Assessing Preventive Medicine Reports involves balancing rapid dissemination against publication fees and indexing scope:

Strengths:

• Immediate Global Accessibility: Gold open-access publishing ensures research is freely readable worldwide without paywalls.
• Automated Repository Deposit: Elsevier deposits all published articles into PubMed Central (PMC), fulfilling public access mandates from funders such as the NIH and Wellcome Trust.
• Established Publishing Infrastructure: Articles receive permanent Crossref DOIs and digital archiving via Portico and CLOCKSS.
• Support for Pilot Studies: The journal accepts negative results and pilot interventions that broader medical journals often decline, sharing characteristics with an open-access mega-journal peer review model.

Limits:

• Article Processing Charges: Authors must pay an APC (maximum $2,940 USD registered on DOAJ). While waivers exist for low-income nations via Research4Life, unfunded authors require institutional support or funder APC reimbursement policies.
• No MEDLINE Core Indexing: While articles appear in PubMed via PMC deposit, the journal lacks MEDLINE core selection, which may affect tenure reviews requiring MEDLINE-indexed outlets.
• Single Anonymous Review: Reviewers know author identities during evaluation, whereas reviewer names remain confidential.
• Review Turnaround: DOAJ records indicate a median publication timeline of 17 weeks from submission to final online appearance.

Alternatives

The following table compares Preventive Medicine Reports with alternative peer-reviewed prevention and public health journals:

Journal Title	Publisher	Access Model	Standard APC (USD)	Peer Review Type	Primary Indexing
Preventive Medicine Reports	Elsevier	Gold Open Access	$2,940	Single anonymous	PMC, Scopus, DOAJ, ESCI
Preventive Medicine	Elsevier	Hybrid (Subscription / OA)	$3,970 (OA option)	Single anonymous	MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, SCIE
BMC Public Health	BioMed Central / Springer Nature	Gold Open Access	$3,190	Single anonymous	MEDLINE, PubMed, PMC, Scopus, DOAJ
American Journal of Preventive Medicine	Elsevier	Hybrid (Subscription / OA)	$3,900 (OA option)	Single anonymous	MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, SCIE

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Preventive Medicine Reports indexed in PubMed?

Yes. All articles published in Preventive Medicine Reports are deposited directly into PubMed Central (PMC) by Elsevier and appear in PubMed. In the National Library of Medicine Catalog, the journal indexing status is listed as a remote electronic serial rather than MEDLINE core, meaning articles enter PubMed through PMC repository deposit.

Who publishes Preventive Medicine Reports?

Preventive Medicine Reports is published by Elsevier Inc. on ScienceDirect. It operates as the gold open-access companion title to Elsevier subscription journal Preventive Medicine.

What is the Article Processing Charge (APC) for Preventive Medicine Reports?

The standard Article Processing Charge is up to $2,940 USD as registered with the Directory of Open Access Journals. Elsevier offers full or partial fee waivers for authors in qualifying low- and middle-income nations through Research4Life, alongside discounts through institutional transformative agreements.

What Creative Commons licenses does the journal offer?

Authors can publish under CC BY 4.0 (Attribution), CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial), or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives), enabling compliance with international funder open-access mandates.

What peer review process is used by the journal?

The journal uses single anonymous peer review. Reviewers know author identities and affiliations, but reviewer identities are withheld from authors throughout the review process.

How do authors submit articles to Preventive Medicine Reports?

Manuscripts must be submitted through Elsevier Editorial Manager portal via the “Submit your article” link on the ScienceDirect journal homepage. Authors upload manuscript files, cover letters, and disclosure statements using their Elsevier or ORCID login.

Sources

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). “Preventive Medicine Reports (ISSN: 2211-3355) Journal Record.” DOAJ Metadata Record. https://doaj.org/api/v3/search/journals/issn%3A2211-3355 (Accessed November 8, 2026).
• National Library of Medicine (NLM). “Preventive Medicine Reports.” NLM Catalog Record UID 101643766. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esummary.fcgi?db=nlmcatalog&id=101643766 (Accessed November 8, 2026).
• National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). “PMC Database Journal Archive Search: Preventive Medicine Reports.” PubMed Central. https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pmc&term=Preventive+Medicine+Reports[journal] (Accessed November 8, 2026).
• Crossref. “Crossref REST API Journal Record: ISSN 2211-3355.” https://api.crossref.org/journals/2211-3355 (Accessed November 8, 2026).
• Elsevier / ScienceDirect. “Preventive Medicine Reports: Aims, Scope and Guide for Authors.” ScienceDirect Journal Portal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/preventive-medicine-reports (Accessed November 8, 2026).