Aims and Scope

• Child health and disease

  Physical and mental health, development, and the recognition, diagnosis, and management of disease and injury in infants, children, and adolescents, including how conditions present and progress.

  In the record Internal Jugular Phlebectasia; A Challenging Neck Mass in Children (2024)

• Nutrition, feeding, and growth

  Feeding practice and dietary intake from breastfeeding and complementary feeding onward, nutritional status and growth, and the methods used to assess them.

  In the record Determinants of Exclusive Breastfeeding Among Mothers of Infants Less Than Six Months of Age in Mogadishu: A Facility-Based Cross-Sectional Study (2024)

• Undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency

  Wasting, stunting, and micronutrient deficiency; therapeutic and supplementary feeding; nutritional recovery; and the clinical presentation of deficiency states.

  In the record Vitamin B12 Deficiency in Children Due to Lack of Intake: A Report of Two Cases at the Pediatric Department at Aristide Le Dantec Hospital (2021)

• Nutrition in clinical care

  Nutritional assessment, support, and intervention in children living with acute or chronic disease, including interactions between nutrition, treatment, growth, and recovery.

  In the record Factors Impacting Nutritional Status in Infants with Single Ventricle Physiology (2025)

• Prevention, public health, and services for children

  Determinants of child health and nutrition in households, communities, schools, and institutions; preventive and feeding programs; and the access to and delivery of pediatric care.

  In the record Risk Factors of Persistent Diarrhoea in Children below Five Years of Age (2019)

• The newborn, and the child's earliest exposures

  Neonatal health and feeding, and the perinatal, maternal, and household exposures that are examined for what they mean for the infant's own health or nutrition.

  In the record Clinical Landmarks of COVID-19 in Newborn, Children and Teenagers (2020)

• Mechanism, method, and measurement

  Laboratory, translational, and methodological work directed at a pediatric question: mechanisms of disease and of nutritional deficiency, biomarkers, diagnostic and dietary-assessment methods, and the development, evaluation, or validation of instruments for pediatric use.

  Invited Submissions of this kind are assessed on the same criteria as the clinical and population studies alongside them.

• Newborn Birth and the neonatal period
• Infant The first year, and early feeding
• Young child Toddler and preschool years
• School age Middle childhood
• Adolescent Puberty to the end of adolescence

Clinical studies

Trials, cohorts, case-control and cross-sectional studies, and diagnostic and prognostic accuracy work addressing pediatric health, development, or care.

Nutrition studies

Dietary intake, feeding practice, supplementation, therapeutic feeding, and nutritional status, measured in individuals or in populations.

Population and public health

Surveillance, program evaluation, determinants of health, and health-services research whose participants or beneficiaries are children.

Basic and translational

Mechanistic and laboratory work, including animal and in vitro models, reported with a substantive connection to a pediatric health or nutrition question.

Methods and measurement

Development, evaluation, or validation of instruments, assessment methods, and analytical approaches addressing pediatric health or nutrition questions.

Clinical reports

Single cases and small series that document a presentation, a course, or a management decision another clinician would benefit from seeing.

Replication and synthesis

Replication and confirmatory studies, evidence syntheses, and reviews of pediatric health and nutrition questions. Findings are considered on their relevance and rigor, including results that are null or differ from earlier work.

These approaches describe scientific scope rather than an exhaustive list of article formats. The published record includes original research, case reports, brief clinical communications, and correspondence. Consult the Instructions for Authors for manuscript preparation guidance.

• The age band, as measured, in weeks, months, or years.
• The setting — the ward, clinic, community, school, feeding program, or institution, and the country.
• The study sample or evidence base, its selection, size, and study period; for clinical studies, the participants and care context.
• What was given, in what amount and for how long, and how intake and nutritional status were measured.
• Permission from a parent or legal guardian, together with the child's own assent where the child is able to give it, obtained under the approved study protocol.
• Separate written permission to publish any material that could identify a child, and the omission of identifying details that the science does not require.
• Clinical-trial registration. Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript. This includes trials of dietary interventions. See the Editorial Policies for related guidance.
• Data availability. Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.

Assessment

How a submission in scope is assessed