Journal profile · Social Sciences-Public Administration
Human Resources for Health
ISSN 1478-4491 · Springer Nature · United Kingdom
Human Resources for Health: CAS Zone 2 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 5.21; fully open access; APC about USD 3,390; median 240 days to acceptance (94 articles, last 24 months); 76 articles in 2025; indexed in SSCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Human Resources for Health is published by Springer Nature and is in Zone 2 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Global Health Workforce Issues, Global Maternal and Child Health and Global Health and Surgery, together about 48.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are General Health Professions. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Human Resources for Health welcomes manuscripts on all aspects of the planning, education, management and governance of human resources for health – particularly those of international relevance and global reach. Human Resources for Health aims to support and shape the growing focus on health workforce policy, profile, planning, and performance, and on its contributions to improved health care effectiveness and population health, equity, access, social inclusion, and economic growth. Human Resources for Health encourages debate and analysis on the health workforce aspects of health sector reform, health service funding and structures, regulation, technology, equity, and access. It contributes to the global evidence base by disseminating research and analysis on: health workforce policy and governance; health labour markets; the training, education and development of the workforce; health workforce practice and management; health workforce mobility and migration; job satisfaction, motivations, and career patterns; skill mix, performance and outcomes; and development of knowledge tools and implementation mechanisms, nationally and internationally. The journal encourages collaboration with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted, and expects their inclusion as co-authors when they fulfill all authorship criteria. Human Resources for Health is multi-disciplinary in focus. Effective development, deployment and evaluation of the health workforce are complex processes that require cross-disciplinary collaboration, intersectoral co-ordination, and sound theoretical concepts, in areas such as: labour market analyses; planning; evaluation of programmes; economic evaluation; political and policy analysis; demographics and statistics; gender and diversity studies; migration studies; technological innovation; and methods of improving motivation and productivity. Please note that single intervention focused studies, which are relatively exploratory, small scale and/or descriptive, and which have no clear international context or relevance are unlikely to be sent for peer review or accepted for publication. There is no other international journal in which this analytical and policy oriented agenda can be debated and disseminated to the broader community of human resources for health analysts, academics, practitioners and policy makers. In aiming to have global reach and resonance, and policy impact, Human Resources for Health welcomes articles examini
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Social Sciences-Public Administration
Editor-in-chief Inês FronteiraPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 1%); most named United States 9, Switzerland 8, United Kingdom 7, Australia 6, Canada 4 (74 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Global Health Workforce IssuesHealth Professions22.8%
- Global Maternal and Child HealthMedicine17.5%
- Global Health and SurgeryMedicine7.8%
- Healthcare Systems and ReformsEconomics, Econometrics and Finance6%
- Nursing education and managementNursing5.6%
- Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnoutHealth Professions4.8%
- Primary Care and Health OutcomesHealth Professions3.7%
- Diversity and Career in MedicineSocial Sciences3.5%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Health Policy & Services | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Industrial Relations & Labor | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Health Policy & Services | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Industrial Relations & Labor | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Medicine Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Health Policy & Services | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Industrial Relations & Labor | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SSCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
SCIEMEDLINECASCAB AbstractsPublisher website
Other: Google Scholar, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS, Semantic Scholar
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 5.21LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 5.4Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 6.1Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 8.1LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.53LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 2.02LetPub ·
- h-index
- 124OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,209OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 6.81OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 3.7%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 72LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 2,025Publisher website ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 2,100,000Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 1,572 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | 59 | 15 |
| 2025 | 76 | 76 | 304 |
| 2024 | 83 | 83 | 1,166 |
| 2023 | 96 | 96 | 1,633 |
| 2022 | 106 | 106 | 2,772 |
| 2021 | 137 | 137 | 4,343 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
240 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 149 days – 434 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 17 days (94 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 262 days
- Sample
- 94 articles with submission and acceptance dates (151 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 34 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 11 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 34 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Open peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | EUR 2,790 / USD 3,390 / GBP 2,490 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 3,290 / EUR 2,690 / GBP 2,390 | — | — | |
| LetPub | GBP 2,290 / USD 3,190 / EUR 2,590 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | GBP 2,490 / USD 3,390 / EUR 2,790 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare2 items from the author guidelines
- Reference style
- Vancouver
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
Article types accepted9
- case studyResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- commentaryResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- hypothesisResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- letter to the editorResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- letter to the editor responseResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- methodologyResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- research articleResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- research comment (previously commentary)Research article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
- reviewResearch article Case study Commentary Hypothesis Methodology Review Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Response Research Comment (previously Commentary)Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteData availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- Data availability Formatting the 'Availability of data and materials' section of your manuscript
The following format for the 'Availability of data and materials section of your manuscript should be used:
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Licensing and copyright
Creative Commons licences Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. Human Resources for Health articles are published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribut…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Benefits of open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits, including greater reach and readership for your work: Cited more 1.6x more citations of OA articles than non-OA articles across all subjects Downloaded more 4x more downloads of OA articles than non-OA articles Greater impact 2.5x more Altmetric attention. OA articles attracted 1.9x more news mentions and 1.2x more policy mentions Open acces…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Full editorial policies are available on the BioMed Central website. Model summary
Peer review is the process used to evaluate the quality of a manuscript before publication. Independent researchers in the relevant field assess submitted manuscripts to check their validity and robustness. Their feedback guides editors in making publication decisions. Typically, two or more experts evaluate each manuscript based on three main criteria: scientific robustness: is the research metho…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Country or region
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1478-4491
- Society / sponsor
- World Health Organization
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Human Resources for Health
What CAS zone is Human Resources for Health in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Human Resources for Health is in Zone 2 of Medicine, and in Zone 1 of the minor category Health Policy & Services / Industrial Relations & Labor. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Human Resources for Health?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 5.21; CiteScore 8.1, h-index 124.
How long does peer review take at Human Resources for Health?
Based on the dates recorded on 94 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 240 days (interquartile range 149–434 days); authors report an average review time of about 34 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Human Resources for Health?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Reference style: Vancouver; Suggested reviewers: Optional. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Human Resources for Health based?
Of the 74 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 1 (about 1%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (9), Switzerland (8) and United Kingdom (7). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Human Resources for Health?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Human Resources for Health is indexed in SSCI, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists SCIE, MEDLINE, CAS and CAB Abstracts; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Human Resources for Health open access, and what is the APC?
Human Resources for Health is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 3,390.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .