Next phase for the Journal of Climate Change and Health

Founded in 2020, the Journal of Climate Change and Health has a goal of serving the global community of researchers, physicians and other healthcare providers, public health professionals, and policymakers by publishing works elucidating the connections between climate change and human health. In doing so, we strive to promote professional and general communication about the immediate and long-term effects of climate change on human physical and mental health and well-being, to disseminate research findings about relevant and equitable solutions in mitigation and adaptation, and to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

During its first five years, the Journal has grown considerably [1]. Credit belongs to the dedication of its founding Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Marcalee Alexander, along with members of the Editorial Board, hundreds of volunteer peer reviewers, promotion by our various collaborating organizations and individuals, and the professional staff at our publisher, Elsevier. In addition to previous indexing in Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals, and Emerging Sources Citation Index, in January 2026 the Journal achieved PubMed Central indexing, a longstanding goal. These accomplishments reflect the hard work, commitment, and perseverance of many individuals.

Research and clinical practice at the intersection of climate change and human health and well-being encompass many disciplines and approaches, which are highly variable in geographic, socioeconomic, and institutional contexts globally. To continue optimizing the Journal’s contribution to understanding and improving human and planetary health, the Editorial Board has been reorganized to match the expertise of its members with the needed peer review and editorial processes to ensure that high quality, impactful manuscripts are submitted, appropriately refined, and published. Therefore, in addition to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor-in-Chief, and Managing Editor roles, the Editorial Board now includes two distinct components. A newly expanded complement of Associate Editors organized by topic area offers the expertise needed to provide personalized input and guidance to authors. Within this group of Associate/Topic Editor clusters, we also have incorporated a Methods Core, with professionals who can assist in evaluating the statistical or other quantitative or qualitative methods used in a study to help ensure appropriateness and robustness of derived results and conclusions. In addition to the Associate/Topic Editor structure, the second component of the Editorial Board now includes an expanded Reviewer Board, including topic experts who can provide consistent critical review, and suggestions to authors and Associate/Topic Editors on how to enhance submissions to be as rigorous and clear as possible to the climate and health community and our broader readership who may be outside these central disciplines. To assist with quality checks, consistency of formatting, and technical requirements, we have retained the invaluable services of our Technical Editor. Our Cover Director oversees selection of memorable images that help to illustrate aspects of climate change and health visually.

At the time of this writing, we are working on many fronts to streamline the Guide for Authors on the Journal’s website, update templates used by reviewers to improve consistency in reviews, recruit additional Reviewer Board members, and fully populate our Associate/Topic Editor roster. We are happy to provide information to people interested in volunteering to join this team of dedicated clinicians, scholars, policy experts, public health professionals, and researchers interested in promoting scholarship on climate change and health, one of our most pressing existential problems in this all-important, future-determining 21st century.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Ann-Christine Duhaime: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Conceptualization. Ilyssa Gordon: Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Ann-Christine Duhaime reports a relationship with Journal of Climate Change and Health that includes: board membership. Ilyssa Gordon, MD PhD reports a relationship with Journal of Climate Change and Health that includes: board membership. Authors are both members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Climate Change and Health. Given their role as editorial board members, they had no involvement in the peer review of this article and had no access to information regarding its peer review. Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to another journal editor.