About Health Policy and Planning
Health Policy and Planning is an open access journal, publishing health policy and systems research focusing on low- and middle-income countries.
Our journal provides an international forum for publishing original and high-quality research that addresses questions pertinent to policy-makers, public health researchers and practitioners. Health Policy and Planning is published 10 times a year.
Specific objectives are to:
- Attract high quality research papers, reviews and debates on topics relevant to health policies in low- and middle-income countries;
- Ensure wide geographical coverage of papers including coverage of the poorest countries and those in transition;
- Encourage and support researchers from low- and middle-income countries to publish in HPP ;
- Ensure papers reflect a broad range of disciplines, methodologies and topics;
- Ensure that papers are clearly explained and accessible to readers from the range of disciplines used to analyse health policies; and
- Provide a fair, supportive and high-quality peer review process.
We're pleased to offer these video resources guiding authors and reviewers on the best practices for reviewing and submitting to Health Policy and Planning.
Open Access
On the 1st January 2024, Health Policy and Planning became a fully open access journal.
Health Policy and Planning (HPP) is an online open access journal. All articles submitted to the journal after the 1st of January 2024, if accepted, will be published in the journal under an open access CC BY, CC BY NC or CC BY NC ND license immediately upon publication. Please note that earlier content may be published under a different license. You will need to provide funding to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access license.
Health Policy and Planning flipped to fully Open Access on 1st of January 2024. Content published prior to that date is free to view, and all rights are reserved.
You can arrange payment or referral of Open Access charges using our Author Portal. The open access charges applicable to this journal:
- Original Research, Review Articles, How To Do...Or Not To Do and Methodological Musings - £2,330
- Commentaries - £1165
Members of Health Systems Global can continue to benefit from a 25% reduction on the full article processing charge (APC).
[Note that Editorials, 10 Best Resources, Innovation and Practice Reports and Corrections do not require an APC and can be published free of charge].
It's important to us that authors are not prevented from publishing in the journal because of financial barriers. There are two routes through which you may be able to secure support to address the costs of publication through OUP and Health Policy and Planning.
First, OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.
Second, our waiver policy
If the corresponding author is based in one of the low income countries included in OUP’s Developing Countries Initiative, your article will receive a full waiver of the open access charge. This waiver will be automatically applied during the Production process, but if you have any questions, or need help indicating your eligibility, please contact the Health Policy and Planning Editorial Office ([email protected]).
Alternatively, Health Policy and Planning may be able to offer a discretionary full or partial waiver to other authors if they do not have funding to pay the Article Processing Charge. Authors can request a waiver after their paper’s acceptance for publication by visiting the OUP APC Waiver Policy page and filling out a Waiver request form.
Peer review policy
HPP has a double-blinded peer-review policy. All papers, in each of the categories described within the instructions for authors are peer reviewed.
Subject sections
HPP publishes in four subject sections which include Health Economics, Health Policy Processes, Health Systems Research, and Implementation Research and Evaluation.
- Health Economics: The health economics section investigates health system phenomena with a strong health economics and/or financing component and those that apply economics techniques.
- Health Policy Processes: The health policy processes section analyses health policy processes at local, national, regional or global levels, or across these levels.
- Health Systems Research: The Health Systems research section aims at publishing papers that present research on, or from within health systems that includes a perspective of health systems as complex systems.
- Implementation Research and Evaluation: The implementation research and evaluation section publishes papers that relate to the evaluation, using rigorous methods, of the implementation of health interventions, policies and programmes in real-life settings of low and middle-income countries.
Not sure which section to submit to? Read our Section Summaries here.
Instructions for authors
Our instructions for authors have been updated. Authors should pay close attention to the factors that will increase likelihood of acceptance.
Improving chances of publication
As well as the high overall quality required for publication in an international journal, authors should take into consideration:
- Addressing HPP's readership: national and international policy makers, practitioners, academics and general readers with a particular interest in health policy issues and debates.
- Manuscripts that fail to set out the international debates to which the paper contributes, and to draw out policy lessons and conclusions, are more likely to be rejected, returned to the authors for redrafting prior to being reviewed, or undergo a slower acceptance process.
- In addition, economists should note that papers accepted for publication in HPP will consider the broad policy implications of an economic analysis rather than focusing primarily on the methodological or theoretical aspects of the study.
- Public health specialists writing about a specific health problem or service should discuss the relevance of the analysis for the broader health system. Those submitting health policy analyses should draw on relevant bodies of theory in their analysis, or justify why they have not, rather than only presenting a narrative based on empirical data.
Impact Factor and Ranking
| Year | Impact Factor | Si: Health Care Sciences & Services | Ssi: Health Policy & Services |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2.9 | 54 out of 174 | 36 out of 118 |
| 2022 | 3.2 | 47 out of 105 | 35 out of 87 |
| 2021 | 3.547 | 39 out of 109 | 25 out of 88 |
| 2020 | 3.344 | 40 out of 108 | 19 out of 88 |
| 2019 | 2.704 | 33 out of 102 | 18 out of 87 |
| 2018 | 2.717 | 29 out of 98 | 14 out of 81 |
| 2017 | 2.420 | 32 out of 94 | 17 out of 79 |
| 2016 | 2.368 | 30 out of 90 | 16 out of 77 |
| 2015 | 2.513 | 25 out of 87 | 13 out of 74 |
| 2014 | 3.470 | 7 out of 89 | 4 out of 71 |
| 2013 | 3.442 | 13 out of 85 | 7 out of 70 |
| 2012 | 3.056 | 10 out of 82 | 4 out of 67 |
| 2011 | 2.651 | 13 out of 76 | 7 out of 62 |
| 2010 | 2.793 | 8 out of 71 | 6 out of 56 |
| 2009 | 2.477 | 15 out of 69 | 10 out of 49 |
| 2008 | 1.953 | 23 out of 62 | 16 out of 41 |
| 2007 | 1.653 | 20 out of 57 | 15 out of 40 |
| 2006 | 1.750 | 21 out of 56 | 15 out of 39 |
Latest information is taken from the Journal Citation Reports (Source Clarivate, 2024).
Revisit a selection of high-impact papers.
Abstracting and Indexing Services
The journal is covered by several major indexing services including:- Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)
- Baidu Scholar
- CAB Abstracts
- CNKI
- CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
- Current Contents® /Social and Behavioral Sciences
- EMBASE
- Excerpta Medica Abstract Journals
- Health & Safety Science Abstracts
- PubMed
- Social Sciences Citation Index®
- Sociological Abstracts
- Tropical Diseases Bulletin
