Contents:
- Contact the Journal Editor
- Aims & Scope
- Journal metrics & indexing
- Journal pricing information
- Video Snapshot
Contact the Journal Editor
If you have any queries about the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research, please contact the Journal Editor, Laura Dormer.
Aims & Scope
Healthcare faces ongoing challenges in balancing the needs of diverse patient populations with the pressures of resource allocation. At the same time, cutting-edge research, technological advances and emerging methodologies have the potential to improve the quality of care, while also addressing the urgent demand for equitable and sustainable healthcare solutions.
The availability of vast amounts of health data offers unprecedented potential to harness big data insights that were previously unavailable, but also brings significant methodological, legal and ethical challenges. There is a pressing need for comparative effectiveness research (CER) and health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), underpinned by robust clinical trial and real-world data (RWD), to evaluate available healthcare options and interventions, and address uncertainties in optimal clinical practice.
Having traditionally supported post-market safety and treatment decisions, HEOR and real-world evidence (RWE) are now becoming integral throughout the product development lifecycle; from establishing burden of illness and unmet patient needs, to underpinning value-based healthcare decision-making.
The open access, peer-reviewed Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research (JCER) assists patients, clinicians, researchers, healthcare regulators, payers and policy makers to choose between the available options to improve healthcare delivery at the level of the individual and on a population scale. With comparative effectiveness at its core, JCER provides a platform for cross-sector collaboration, presenting new findings and fostering discussion and debate.
AUTHOR GUIDELINES SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT
Coverage in JCER includes:
- Studies focused on patient-centered outcomes, effectiveness, comparative effectiveness and safety, providing new insights into diagnostics, therapeutics, surgical procedures, or other healthcare services and options
- HEOR studies, including cost-effectiveness analysis, budget impact analysis, and health-related quality of life assessments, evaluating the economic value and outcomes of healthcare interventions
- Studies and perspectives related to market access, including pricing and reimbursement analyses, health technology assessments (HTAs), and access strategies, exploring the economic and regulatory factors influencing the availability and affordability of healthcare interventions
- Research on health equity and inclusivity, examining the impact of socioeconomic, environmental and demographic factors on healthcare access, outcomes and representation in clinical research
- Protocols detailing the rationale, design and implementation methods of newly commencing studies, fostering transparency and trust in RWE
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of available evidence on the pros and cons of healthcare options for specific patient groups, including precision/personalized medicine
- Advancements in the methodologies and technology underpinning high-quality CER, HEOR and RWE
JCER (ISSN: 2042-6305; eISSN: 2042-6313) is partnered with The Evidence Base®, a free-to-use website for all stakeholders working across the healthcare ecosystem interested in RWE, HTA, HEOR, market access and patient-centered care. The Evidence Base offers access to engaging and insightful resources – including the latest news, interviews, webinars, video, peer-reviewed journal articles and more.
The journal welcomes unsolicited article proposals.
Journal metrics & indexing
Metrics for the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research include:
- Impact Factor: 2.8 (2025)
- Impact Factor ranking: 81 of 194 (Health Care Sciences & Services)
- 5-Year Impact Factor: 2.7 (2025)
- CiteScore: 4.2 (2025)
- CiteScore ranking: 109 of 330 (Health Policy)
- SJR: 0.903 (2025)
- SNIP: 1.04 (2025)
The Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research is indexed in the following places:
- DOAJ
- EMBASE/Excerpta Medica
- EMCare
- Essential Science Indicators
- Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition
- MEDLINE/Index Medicus
- PubMed Central (PMC)
- Research Alert
- Science Citation Index Expanded (SciSearch®)
- Scopus
Journal pricing information
The Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research uses a third-party payment system, managed by SciPris. Authors will receive an email at acceptance detailing how to pay their fees. Authors should follow the instructions in the email and on SciPris or forward the email to the individual responsible for payment of the fee to complete.
Article processing charge
The Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research is an open access journal, with all articles requiring the payment of the open access article processing charge (APC) on acceptance for publication. All articles are subject to our standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit. APC depends on article type, as follows:
| Article type | Article processing charge (in US$) |
Externally peer-reviewed articles, e.g.:
|
$3,900*† |
Non-externally peer-reviewed articles, e.g.:
|
$1,950*† |
| Plain Language Summary of Publication | $5,200*† |
| *Plus VAT where applicable. †An additional $2,000 is applied for authors opting for a CC-BY license type where this is not mandated by their funding body. |
|
The APC should be paid within 30 days by the author or other funding body. The source of funding for open access fees should be included in the Financial & Competing Interests Disclosure statement.
Journal articles are published under the CC BY-NC-ND license as standard. Under certain circumstances (see here for further details), certain articles may be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. Where a CC-BY license is preferred but not mandated, please indicate this on the Open Access License Form (additional fees will apply, as noted in the table above). For any queries, please contact the Editor.
Discounts on APCs
Authors based in countries (or who have received their funding from countries) in Group A or Group B of the Research4Life list (https://www.research4life.org/access/eligibility/) are eligible to apply for a waiver on APCs. Authors who believe they are eligible for a waiver, should request this when submitting their article, and should provide the journal editor with details of their affiliation or funding source as appropriate (including whether the funding body has policies related to mandatory open access publication). Such discounts cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, nor can they be requested once the manuscript has been entered into the peer-review process. Discounts are granted at the Editor’s discretion.
Rapid Review & Rapid Publication options
The Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research also has the following optional services:
| Optional service | Description | Fee (in US$) |
| Rapid Review | Accelerating the entire process from submission through peer review to publication, the Rapid Review option provides prioritized peer review and expedited online publication of accepted articles. Rapid Review can be selected by authors during article submission. |
$3,900* |
| Rapid Publication | Following article acceptance, the Rapid Publication option provides online publication within 3 weeks of acceptance. Rapid Publication can be selected by authors once an article has been accepted. |
$1,950* |
| *Plus VAT where applicable. | ||
The Rapid Review/Publication fee should be paid within 30 days by the author or other funding body. The source of funding for the fee should be included in the Financial & Competing Interests Disclosure statement.
Please note: the rapid options are not available for Letters (Letter to the Editor or Letter in Reply).
Video Snapshot
What is a Video Snapshot?
A Video Snapshot is a short, narrated “explainer” video (typically 2–5 minutes) that walks viewers through the key takeaways of an article in a clear, accessible format. Created with the support of AI technology, it offers a distinctive, shareable way to present an article, making it easier to discover and quicker to understand. We are pleased to partner with LCP Health Analytics to deliver this service using their cutting-edge AI tool, Transpose™, designed to enhance content discoverability and accessibility. Authors retain full editorial control of the video, with the opportunity to review and approve both the script and the final video to ensure accuracy and alignment with the published article. Video Snapshots are available for all article types.
Key benefits include:
A published example can be viewed here: /doi/10.57264/cer-2024-0213
Video Snapshot fee
The fee for the Video Snapshot is $3,000 (plus VAT where applicable). This fee is payable only if the article is accepted following the peer-review process.