About

The Harm Reduction Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes research and commentary on approaches diminishing the harm of stigmatization, marginalization and criminalization of public health, human rights and social justice issues, as well as rebuking the de facto criminalization of marginalized and stigmatized communities. The Harm Reduction Journal has a broad focus and encourages submissions on gambling, alcohol, tobacco, sex work, the internet, human enhancement drugs, psychoactive and addictive substances, incarceration, road trauma, youth, and law enforcement.

We define 'harm reduction' as 'policies and programs which aim to reduce the health, social, and economic costs of this range of behaviors without necessarily reducing the behaviors themselves'. There are various harm reduction strategies, practices and programs that aim to reduce the adverse impact of policies, laws and regulations on both individuals and communities: Harm Reduction Journal seeks to encourage research and commentary on these approaches and their effectiveness.

The journal’s broad focus deliberately encourages a collaborative approach where evidence of effectiveness in historic harm reduction approaches, such as HIV, can be compared with newer areas where problematic policy and criminalization of the above behaviors is still prevalent. We welcome research articles, case studies, methodologies, reviews (including narrative and systematic reviews), meeting reports, perspectives and comments, amongst others across this wide range of issues.

The Editor-in-Chief also invites discussion on other complex issues for which a harm reduction approach is appropriate or should be considered – please contact our editorial office if you have any questions about the suitability of your work.

Contact us

Submission enquiries: candyann.du@springernature.com
General enquiries: info@biomedcentral.com

All articles published by Harm Reduction Journal are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here. 

As authors of articles published in Harm Reduction Journal you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article according to the licence terms. 

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Authors who publish open access in Harm Reduction Journal are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is: £2390.00/$3290.00/€2790.00

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for articles published in our fully open access journals whose corresponding authors are based in the world’s lowest income countries (see our APC waivers and discounts policy for further information). Requests for APC waivers and discounts from other authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

For information about the APC applicable for articles accepted for publication next year, please see our journal lists.

All articles published in Harm Reduction Journal are included in:

• Cinahl
• Citebase
• Current contents
• DOAJ
• Embase
• EmCare
• MEDLINE
• Medscape
• OAIster
• PsycINFO
• PubMed
• PubMed Central
• SCImago
• Scopus
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• SOCOLAR
• Zetoc

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

All manuscripts submitted to Harm Reduction Journal should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Articles in Harm Reduction Journal  should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Harm Reduct J [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Harm Reduct J 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

High visibility

Harm Reduction Journal's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. 

Speed of publication

Harm Reduction Journal offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Harm Reduction Journal gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Harm Reduction Journal are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Harm Reduction Journal’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Harm Reduction Journal may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Harm Reduction Journal. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Harm Reduction Journal you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work. For further information, see our guide to licensing, copyright and author rights. 

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.