About the Journal

Journal Overview

World Nutrition (ISSN Online: 2041-9775) is the official, international, peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the World Public Health Nutrition Association (WPHNA). The journal is dedicated to advancing rigorous, ethical, and policy-relevant research in public health nutrition, with due attention to closely aligned disciplines including clinical nutrition, public health, preventive medicine, population health, food systems, and sustainable agriculture.

Published quarterly (March, June, September, and December), World Nutrition offers a trusted global platform for disseminating high-quality scientific research, critical policy analyses, and evidence-informed perspectives that improve population health, advance nutrition equity, and strengthen sustainable food systems worldwide.

Journal Scope and Content: The journal publishes the following categories of scholarly contributions:

  • Original research articles
  • Systematic, scoping, and narrative reviews
  • Policy analyses and implementation research
  • Commentaries, viewpoints, and expert perspectives

World Nutrition prioritises scholarship that informs public health policy, community-based interventions, nutrition education, and sustainable food systems, with relevance across low-, middle-, and high-income countries.

Aims and Scope

World Nutrition advances knowledge of the determinants, consequences, and solutions to public health and community nutrition challenges through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research that integrates biomedical, social, environmental, and policy perspectives.

 Key thematic areas include:

  • Public health and community nutrition
  • Nutrition equity, social justice, and human rights
  • Food systems, sustainability, and planetary health
  • Nutrition policy, governance, and program implementation
  • Maternal, infant, child, and adolescent nutrition
  • Gender, social determinants, and structural health inequities
  • Indigenous, local, and community-based knowledge systems
  • Nutrition in humanitarian, fragile, and emergency settings
  • Neglected, climate-tolerant, and wild food sources

 Scope limitation:  World Nutrition publishes only human-focused research. Animal, in vitro, or laboratory-based experimental studies are not considered, except in rare cases where findings directly inform population-level nutrition interventions or policies.

Intended Audience: The journal serves a global and multidisciplinary readership, including:

  • Nutritionists, dietitians, and public health professionals
  • Researchers in nutrition, epidemiology, medicine, and social sciences
  • Educators and students in public health, nutrition, and preventive medicine
  • Policymakers, civil society organisations, development agencies, and NGOs
  • Science communicators and journalists covering nutrition and public health

The journal is intended for contributors and readers seeking methodologically rigorous, ethically grounded, and socially relevant scholarship that advances population health and disease prevention.

Publishing Model and Open Access Policy: World Nutrition operates under a diamond open-access publishing model, ensuring that:

The journal complies with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) principles. Any optional production services (e.g., typesetting fee) offered for non-research content are entirely independent of editorial decision-making, and editorial acceptance is never influenced by financial considerations.

Copyright and Licensing

Peer Review and Editorial Process

World Nutrition employs a rigorous double-blind peer review process designed to ensure scholarly quality, objectivity, and research integrity:

  1. Initial Editorial Screening — Evaluation of scope relevance, originality, methodological rigour, and ethical compliance
  2. External Peer Review — Independent review by a minimum of two subject-matter experts
  3. Editorial Decision — Final decision by the Editor-in-Chief or designated Handling Editor based on reviewer reports

 Detailed information on editorial workflows, reviewer guidelines, and manuscript handling procedures is provided in the Peer Review Policy and Editorial Workflow pages.

Research Ethics and Publication Integrity

World Nutrition adheres strictly to internationally recognised ethical standards, including the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the DOAJ Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

All human research must demonstrate prior ethics committee approval and, where applicable, informed consent. Clinical trials must be prospectively registered in publicly accessible trial registries (e.g., WHO ICTRP, ClinicalTrials.gov).

The journal maintains transparent policies for corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, conflicts of interest, authorship disputes, and research misconduct, fully aligned with COPE best-practice recommendations.

Editorial Independence, Transparency, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

Editorial decisions are made independently of ownership, funding sources, or commercial interests. All authors are required to disclose funding sources and potential conflicts of interest. Reviewer confidentiality is strictly protected.

The journal prohibits the use of AI-generated peer review reports and does not permit artificial intelligence tools to replace editorial judgment. Diversity, equity, and inclusion principles are embedded across editorial governance, reviewer recruitment, and authorship policies.

Journal Governance and Editorial Board

World Nutrition is owned and published by WPHNA, a non-profit professional association dedicated to advancing public health nutrition globally. Editors, reviewers, and contributors serve in a voluntary capacity. Editorial leadership, board membership, institutional affiliations, and country representation are publicly listed on the Editorial Board page. Governance structures ensure academic independence, accountability, transparency, and editorial integrity.

Indexing, Discoverability, and Technical Standards

World Nutrition is indexed and discoverable through reputable scholarly platforms, including DOAJ, EBSCOhost, CAB Abstracts, Global Health, ASCI, OpenAlex, AGRIS, Semantic Scholar, Scilit, Exaly, CiteFactor, and Google Scholar.

Each published article is assigned a Crossref Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to ensure persistent citation, linking, and global discoverability. Articles are published using structured metadata and XML/JATS-compatible workflows, ensuring full interoperability with international indexing services, repositories, and archiving systems. The journal supports direct and author‑initiated manuscript deposition to institutional repositories. Detailed technical guidance is provided on the Manuscript Preparation page.

Digital Archiving and Preservation

To ensure permanent access and long-term preservation:

  • World Nutrition participates in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN)
  • Persistent DOIs and standardised metadata protect the integrity of the scholarly record
  • Digital preservation safeguards content against technological obsolescence and platform migration

Transparency and Accountability

Comprehensive editorial policies, ethical guidelines, plagiarism screening procedures, author instructions, and appeals mechanisms are publicly available and cross-linked across the journal website to ensure transparency, accountability, and trust for authors, reviewers, and readers.

World Nutrition operate under a clearly defined editorial governance framework. Details of editorial roles and responsibilities are available here