International Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases

01 · The published record

Selected published research

Selected STI research from the published record, most recent first.

1. Volume 1, Issue 2 · Research article · 10 April 2026

   Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Infections in the United Kingdom from Home-Collected Samples: A Cross-Sectional Laboratory Analysis of over 6000 Cases

   Mary Jo Kurth, Joanne Watt, Katie Coyle, Laura Mooney, Gary Smyth, John V. Lamont, Peter Fitzgerald, Mark W. Ruddock

   Randox Laboratories Ltd, Clinical Studies Group, Crumlin, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

   Diagnostics and screening · home-collected sampling

   Pages 29–42

   doi:10.14302/issn.2994-6743.ijstd-25-5899

2. Volume 1, Issue 2 · Research article · 13 April 2024

   Syphilis and Beyond: A Comprehensive Analysis of Associated Infections and Comorbidities in a Five-Year Retrospective Study in the United Arab Emirates (2018-2022)

   Nargis Khatoon Hossein Mehdi Poor, Laila Mohamed Jasim Ali AlDabal, Safia Bashiri, Elham Alneaimi, Afra Ahmad Abdulla Alshafar Almarri, Amani Mohamed Saeid Bayoumy, SalahEldin Hussain Omer, Carol Lavina Dsouza, Musthafa Moosa

   Primary Healthcare Centers Department, PHC, Dubai Health, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

   Syphilis · co-infection and comorbidity

   Pages 19–28

   doi:10.14302/issn.2994-6743.ijstd-24-5006

3. Volume 1, Issue 2 · Research article · 5 April 2024

   Temporal Trends in Syphilis Epidemiology in the UAE: A Five-Year Retrospective Analysis (2018-2022)

   Nargis Khatoon Hossein Mehdi Poor, Laila Mohamed Jasim Ali AlDabal, Dujana Mostafa Hamed, Arshiya Adhnon, Alanood Mohammad Ali Ahmad, Shamsa Mohammad Abdulla Saif Al Suwaidi, Laleh Mohammad Sharif Seddigh, Mahra Nooruddin Abdulwahid Kazim, Carol Lavina Dsouza, Musthafa Moosa

   Primary Healthcare Centers Department, PHC, Dubai Health, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

   Syphilis · surveillance and temporal trends

   Pages 10–18

   doi:10.14302/issn.2994-6743.ijstd-24-5005

4. Volume 1, Issue 2 · Research article · 18 July 2023

   Correlations with Congenital Syphilis in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Study

   Virginia C. Hughes

   Department of Medical and Molecular Sciences, College of Health Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States

   Congenital syphilis · perinatal transmission

   Pages 1–9

   doi:10.14302/issn.2994-6743.ijstd-23-4641

All 9 published records Current issue

02 · Scope

Core research domains

What the editors consider, in the journal’s own terms. Work that sits between two of these domains is welcome.

1. 01

   Pathogen biology and molecular mechanisms

   • Viral pathogenesis in HPV, HSV and sexually transmissible hepatitis; HIV mechanisms relevant to sexual transmission, prevention or STI interactions
   • Bacterial virulence factors in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Treponema pallidum and Chlamydia trachomatis
   • Host-pathogen interactions and immune evasion
   • Antimicrobial resistance in STI pathogens, including gonorrhea and Mycoplasma genitalium
   • Genomic epidemiology and strain evolution
   • Molecular diagnostics and biomarker discovery
   • Parasitic STI biology, including Trichomonas vaginalis
2. 02

   Clinical management and therapeutics

   • Randomized controlled trials of STI treatment regimens
   • Comparative effectiveness of antimicrobial therapies
   • Management of drug-resistant infections
   • Treatment of co-infections and complications, including pelvic inflammatory disease and epididymitis
   • Point-of-care treatment strategies
   • Adverse event monitoring and pharmacovigilance
3. 03

   Epidemiology and public health surveillance

   • Incidence and prevalence studies in defined populations
   • Transmission dynamics and network analysis
   • Surveillance system evaluation and enhancement
   • Geographic and temporal trend analysis
   • Risk factor identification and stratification
   • Health disparities in STI burden
4. 04

   Prevention and vaccine development

   • Vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy trials, including HPV and hepatitis B
   • Pre-exposure prophylaxis and post-exposure prophylaxis
   • Behavioral intervention effectiveness
   • Screening program evaluation and optimization
   • Partner notification and contact tracing strategies
   • Prophylactic technologies, including microbicides and barrier methods

Secondary and cross-disciplinary areas

Considered alongside the domains above when the STI-related contribution is central and the methods support the claims. Biological or clinical outcomes are not required for every qualitative, behavioral or implementation study.

The boundary

General infectious disease

Research on non-sexually-transmitted pathogens — respiratory, gastrointestinal and vector-borne — unless directly relevant to STI co-infection or differential diagnosis.

Basic immunology without STI context

Fundamental immunology, or vaccine development for non-STI pathogens, without direct application to sexually transmitted infection.

Social research without an STI contribution

Social or behavioral studies without a substantive contribution to STI transmission, prevention, testing, treatment, care or access. A biological or clinical endpoint is not required for every study.

Non-infectious sexual health

Sexual dysfunction, contraception unrelated to STI, fertility treatment and reproductive endocrinology without an STI component.

03 · Editorial oversight

Who reviews the work

The editorial board holds 8 members across 7 countries, 5 of whom publish an ORCID iD with their entry. The members featured below work in STI diagnostics, HPV-associated disease and prevention research.

• Jennifer Cunningham-Erves

  Vanderbilt University Medical Center, United States

  Editorial Board

  HPV vaccination, vaccine hesitancy and community-engaged prevention research

  ORCID 0000-0002-7780-9874

• Bassem Refaat

  Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia

  Editorial Board

  Laboratory medicine: multiplex molecular detection of STI pathogens and tubal infection

  ORCID 0000-0003-4267-1016

• Andrea Palicelli

  Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale di Reggio Emilia, Italy

  Editorial Board

  Pathology: HPV and the cytological diagnosis of precancerous cervical lesions

  ORCID 0000-0003-2299-5160

The full editorial board Join the board or review

04 · Research integrity

Handling research on a sensitive subject

Sexual-health data describe people, and how those data are collected, reported and protected is part of the science. These are the journal’s requirements of every manuscript.

Ethics, consent and privacy

• Research involving human participants, identifiable information or biological material requires an ethics statement naming the committee and reference number, or explaining an applicable exemption or waiver.
• Authors must state whether consent to participate was obtained where required. Written consent for publication is required for identifiable case material.
• Authors must minimize the risk of identification, including through combinations of indirect details.
• Competing interests and every funding source are disclosed.

Reporting standards

• CONSORT for clinical trials.
• STROBE for observational studies.
• PRISMA for systematic reviews.
• STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy.
• ARRIVE for animal research.

Data and reproducibility

• Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. Data and code sharing must respect consent, privacy and applicable access restrictions.
• Protocol sharing is encouraged and reproducibility statements are expected.
• Preprints posted to medRxiv or bioRxiv are accepted; disclose the preprint in the cover letter and link it in the published article. Posting a preprint has no effect on consideration.

Registration and data availability

Clinical-trial registration

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

Data availability

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.

05 · Review

Review and decision

The journal states its review model and its decision criteria rather than a turnaround promise.

Screening

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Peer review

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

Decision

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role.

Editorial policies · Instructions for authors · Copyright and license

06 · Charges

Article processing charges

Charged after acceptance only, and set by article type so that short forms are not priced as research reports. There is no submission fee and no reader charge.

Billing and fee-relief inquiries go to [email protected]. The article processing charges page holds the full terms.

07 · Discoverability

Identifiers, discovery and preservation

Registration, discovery and indexing are different things, and the journal states which of them apply to it.

Journal identifier

ISSN 2994-6743, registered with the ISSN International Centre through the US ISSN Center.
ISSN Portal record

DOI registration

Registered articles carry a Crossref DOI under the prefix 10.14302 and keep it permanently. DOI registration is not indexing.
Crossref journal record

Scholarly discovery

The journal and its articles are represented in the OpenAlex open catalog of scholarly works. A discovery service is not a selective index.
OpenAlex source record (API)

Author identifiers

Editors and authors are displayed with their ORCID iD where one has been supplied, and each iD links to the public registry record.

Digital preservation

IJSTD is included under Open Access Pub's Portico digital-preservation program. As articles are deposited, they enter Portico's permanent archive for long-term preservation.

PubMed Central deposit

Eligible NIH-funded manuscripts may be deposited individually in PubMed Central through the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). Deposit of an individual manuscript does not indicate that IJSTD is indexed at the journal level in PubMed, MEDLINE, or PubMed Central.

The registration and discovery page lists every service in full, with the date each status was last checked.

08 · Submission

Submit to IJSTD

Three routes, one editorial office. Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.

Primary

ManuscriptZone

Alternative

Simple manuscript submission form

Assisted

[email protected]

Researchers and clinicians working across sexually transmitted infection are invited to submit throughout the year. If you are unsure whether a manuscript fits, the editorial office will read a title and abstract and say so.

Submit a manuscript Instructions for authors Call for papers

09 · In brief

Questions authors ask