Announcing our new journal:
PLOS Mental Health is an inclusive journal that aims to address challenges and gaps in the field of mental health research, treatment, and care in ways that put the lived experience of individuals and communities first. Exploring a breadth of topics from epidemiology to neurodiversity, digital innovation to mental health economics, our journal will connect experts across disciplines and surface diverse perspectives. We strive to enable deeper understanding, discussion, and action that improves mental health and well-being for individuals and communities around the world.
PLOS Mental Health | ISSN: 2837-8156 (online)
We’re excited to welcome PLOS Mental Health to the PLOS portfolio
Over the next couple of months we’ll be getting to know our new Editors-in-Chief, recruiting Editorial Board members from a diverse range of disciplines, and learning more about how we can best meet the needs of researchers in these communities.
Learn more about how you can get involved and sign-up to receive journal news.
Is your research in scope?
PLOS Mental Health will be a global, multidisciplinary, Open Access journal that brings together research relevant to improving the mental health and well-being of all people around the world. Work published in the journal will range from academic research, clinical research, technology to support improved mental health, the impacts on social inclusion, to policy and governance.
The journal will consider all types of treatments and interventions that are evidence-based and rigorously researched, including community and peer-led activities, and digital/online support.
Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:
- Access to mental health care
- Addiction
- Attention
- Behavioral economics
- Behavioral medicine
- Clinical psychology
- Cognitive developmental disorders
- Cognitive function
- Cognitive impairment
- Emotion
- Epidemiology of mental health
- Environmental impact on mental health
- Health psychology
- Lived experience
- Mental health conditions
- Mental health treatment
- Neuropsychology
- Personality disorders
- Psychiatry
- Risks to mental health
- Socio-economic aspects of mental health
- Treatments
- Well-being
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Meet the Editors-in-Chief
Charlene Sunkel
Charlene Sunkel is the Founder and CEO of the Global Mental Health Peer Network and a global advocate for the rights of people with mental health conditions. She’s been working in the field of mental health, advocacy and human rights since 2003 and has authored several papers from a lived experience perspective. She previously served as Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development and recently Co-Chaired the Lancet Commission on Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health.
Charlene has also contributed to the review and drafting of various policies and legislation in South Africa and provided technical assistance to national and international mental health related reports and documents. She currently serves on a number of international boards and committees, and previously served on the South African Presidential Working Group on Disability and the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health. Charlene is the former Principal Coordinator for the Movement for Global Mental Health. She has received a number of national and international awards for her work to-date.
Rochelle Burgess
Rochelle Burgess is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Health, at University College London. She is a community health psychologist, whose work and teaching focuses broadly on mental health in contexts of adversity and advancing community-led interventions to address the social and political economy of poor mental health globally. Over the past decade she has worked in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Colombia, and London alongside community organizations working to improve mental health.
Her work has contributed to the development and evaluation of treatment options that respond to the structural determinants of poor mental health (mainly poverty and racialization) alongside psychological and psychiatric care, for marginalized groups in low-income and high-income settings. Co-production, collaborative, and participatory approaches form the cornerstones of her work.
Could you be part of our Editorial Board?
Are you a researcher looking to support the community in Mental Health research? If you believe that science, and the process of publishing science, should be fair, equitable, and accessible, you might be a fit for our Editorial Board.
Complete our short form to begin your application. Our PLOS Editorial Board Services team will review your materials and be in touch within a few weeks to discuss your application.
The following Section Editors have joined PLOS Mental Health
This list is updated every 2 weeks. If you are a Section Editor and would like to update any of the information below, please contact community@plos.org
Christian Beste
Technische Universität Dresden
Dresden, Germany
Sherilee Harper
University of Alberta
Alberta, Canada
Sandersan Onie
Black Dog Institute
Sydney, Australia
Trusted research that is open to all
PLOS Mental Health will publish mental health research of the highest ethical and methodological rigor from across disciplines. Our broad and inclusive scope acknowledges the need for increased visibility of research as multifaceted and connected as the experiences of the individuals and societies we aim to serve.
Our Editorial Board will represent the full diversity of the research and researchers in the field. They will work in partnership with expert peer reviewers to evaluate each manuscript against the highest methodological and ethical standards to ensure readers have access to a broad foundation of trusted, reproducible mental health research that deepens understanding of challenges in the field.
As a fully Open Access journal, your published research will be immediately available to all to discover, share, and reuse. No subscription fees, no delays, no barriers of any kind.
Equitable alternatives to APCs
Our journal is committed to surfacing diverse perspectives and centering the lived experience of individuals in the content we publish, including contributors who may not have the privilege of Open Access funds for their work.
We’re partnering with institutions to support authors across all geographies and funding backgrounds in making their work Open. Institutions that choose to participate in our partnership model for PLOS Mental Health can eliminate publication fees for their authors in regionally equitable ways. Institutions geographically located in Research4Life countries are automatically included, and these authors will never be subject to fees.
Our Publication Fee Assistance program is available to any author who demonstrates a lack of funds for publication.