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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Aims and Scope

The Journal of Evolution and Health aims to build an interdisciplinary community of theorists, experimental researchers, clinicians, and laypersons who are united by an evolutionary perspective and who collaborate to develop and test improved methods of healing and living.

The scope of the Journal is broad. Disciplines represented include:


• Anthropology

• Biology

• Biomedical sciences such as neuroscience, microbiology, and immunology

• Evolutionary biology, ecology, and genetics

• Psychology

• Dietary and Nutritional Science

• Physiology and Exercise Science

• Public Health

• Public policy

• History and social sciences of diet and health

• Medicine

• Veterinary medicine

Each of these disciplines addresses aspects of the Journal’s mission. The evolutionary forces shaping human and animal nature are explored by anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, geneticists, and evolutionary psychologists. Major factors impacting human health – diet, lifestyle and physical activity, infectious disease, and gene variants – are subject to evolutionary selection, and are studied by the fields of food science and nutrition, physiology and exercise science, microbiology and immunology, and evolutionary biology and genetics. To be translated into clinical practice, evolutionary insights must be taken up by psychologists, medical doctors, alternative medical practitioners, and veterinarians. Finally, the field of public health synthesizes a wide array of factors affecting health, and public policy exercises considerable influence over public health, medical practice, and dietary guidelines. Historians can address the history of health and of factors influencing health such as diet and lifestyle; social scientists and psychologists may helpfully address social factors that influence health, such as stress.


Peer Review and Open Access

Peer review can significantly improve the quality of papers. Because the Journal of Evolution and Health seeks to integrate knowledge across multiple disciplines to achieve new insights, and few authors can be knowledgeable in all the fields which touch upon problems as broad in scope as evolution and health, we believe that peer review has an especially valuable role in the Journal’s editorial process.

All articles in the Journal of Evolution and Health are open access. Because the Journal’s goal is to build a community and sponsor collaboration among experts from a broad range of disciplines, open access is an essential element of the Journal’s editorial policy.