Health, disease and epidemiology

The Royal Society journals publish research articles, reviews and theme issues in health, disease and epidemiology, biomedical engineering, medical physics and medicinal chemistry.

Latest research

Looking for exciting work in health, disease and epidemiology? Discover top research published by us in recent years.

Philosophical Transactions B theme issues

• Circadian rhythms in infection and immunity
• Causes and consequences of stochastic processes in development and disease
• Understanding the endo-lysosomal network in neurodegeneration
• Strongyloides: omics to worm-free populations
• Causes of obesity: theories, conjectures and evidence
• Challenges and opportunities in the fight against neglected tropical diseases

Interface Focus theme issues

• The Pulsing Brain
• Electrifying insights into cardiac arrhythmias: from molecular mechanisms to therapeutic translations
• Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Article collections

• Biomedical engineering
• Biomedical science
• COVID
• Health and disease and epidemiology
• Medical computing
• Medical physics
• Medicinal chemistry 

From the archive

The Royal Society has been publishing scientific articles for 360 years. Take a look at Sir Hans Sloane's 1755 report ‘An account of inoculation’ that played a leading role in establishing the efficacy and relative safety of inoculation against smallpox. View articles published in Notes and Records about the history of medical sciences.

Browse the Royal Society Journals Archive to discover more key moments in scientific history and fascinating insights into the development of science.

Journals to know about

Philosophical Transactions B publishes high quality theme issues on topics of current importance and general interest within the life sciences, guest-edited by leading authorities and comprising new research, reviews and opinions from prominent researchers. Each issue aims to create an original and authoritative synthesis, often bridging traditional disciplines, which showcases current developments and provides a foundation for future research, applications and policy decisions.

Open Biology is a fast, open access Royal Society journal publishing high impact biology at the molecular and cellular level. The journal publishes original, high quality, peer reviewed research. Article types include ‘open questions’ which highlight underfunded and understudied areas of biology, methods and techniques and short communications. The journal promotes transparent review, open discussion, and has introduced a section within articles called ‘opening up’ where researchers are encouraged to discuss the significance of their results in a wider context.

Proceedings B is the Royal Society’s flagship biological research journal, accepting original articles and reviews of outstanding scientific importance and broad general interest. The main criteria for acceptance are that a study is novel and has general significance to biologists. Articles published cover the breadth of the biological sciences; many but not all articles have direct relevance to organisms and the environments in which they live. 

Journal of the Royal Society Interface publishes research articles and reviews providing a dedicated forum for publication and interaction across scientific boundaries. Articles apply chemistry, engineering, materials science, mathematics and physics to the biological and medical sciences and highlight discoveries in the life sciences of relevance to the physical sciences.

Royal Society Open Science is an open access journal publishing high-quality original research on the basis of objective peer-review. The journal covers the entire range of science and mathematics and allows the Society to publish all the high-quality work it receives without the usual restrictions on scope, length or impact. It welcomes the submission of all high-quality science including articles which may usually be difficult to publish elsewhere, for example, replications or those that include negative findings.