About the Journal

Human Biology and Public Health is the official journal of the Auxological Society.

Aims & Scope

The purpose of the journal is to bridge the gap between the medical/clinical perspectives of public health and the population-based perspectives of human biology. Public health today is built on four ‘pillars’: 1) health protection from environmental or biological threats, such as food poisoning or radiation, 2) health improvement - for example by helping people quit smoking or improving their living conditions, 3) healthcare - ensuring that health services are the most effective, most efficient and equally accessible, 4) academic public health – collect and assess evidence on which ‘pillars’ 1-3 are based. All four pillars relate to the prevention of disease, as defined by the medical/clinical professions. In contrast, human biology investigates the genetic, environmental, and cultural determinants of biological variability in living people. The focus is on how the human species evolved, how individual humans change over the lifespan (growth, maturation and development), how humans adapt to external stressors, and how human biology and culture interact to shape the wide range of normal variation in the biology and behavior of the human species. Both Public Health and Human Biology research contribute to risks for disease, but the perspective of human biology is cross-cultural, historical, and evolutionary.  This wide and deep biocultural perspective helps to avoid the limitations of focusing on only single societies in a limited time frame, for example of adult people of middle and upper socioeconomic status living in modern industrialized countries. 

Human Biology and Public Health will begin as a twice a year, blind peer-reviewed, international journal that publishes reports of original research, theoretical articles, timely reviews, and short notes in the field of human biology and public health. As the official journal of the Auxological Society, the Journal also publishes proceedings of research presented at its annual scientific meeting.

Human Biology and Public Health seeks scholarly manuscripts that address all aspects of the biology of living humans and  publishes basic, applied, and methodologically-oriented research, including growth, nutrition, aging, physical activity, fitness, ecology, and their medical/clinical perspectives.

Human Biology and Public Health is committed to prompt review, and priority publication is given to manuscripts with novel or timely findings, and to manuscripts of unusual interest.