Proactive Health is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal launched by Southern Medical University and published by Higher Education Press (HEP Journals). The journal is dedicated to advancing the science and practice of proactive health—an emerging, interdisciplinary paradigm that shifts the emphasis from episodic, disease-focused reactive care to continuous, health-centered anticipation, prevention, and holistic optimization across the lifespan. By publishing rigorous empirical research, critical reviews, and thought-provoking perspectives, the journal aims to accelerate the translation of knowledge into individual empowerment, community resilience, and system-wide transformation.
Proactive Health defines “proactive health” as the continuous process of maintaining and enhancing physical, mental, and social well-being through anticipatory actions, data-informed self-management, and enabling environments. The journal bridges biomedical discovery, digital innovation, behavioral science, population health, and policy, welcoming contributions that illuminate the determinants, technologies, interventions, and implementation strategies that enable people and societies to stay healthy, detect risks earlier, and slow or prevent the onset of disease.
The scope of the journal encompasses, but is not limited to, the following core areas:
Foundations of proactive health: theoretical frameworks, conceptual models, salutogenesis, and the measurement of positive health and well-being.
Prediction, risk assessment, and early intervention: predictive analytics, multi-omics, digital biomarkers, early warning systems, and proactive approaches to mental health promotion, healthy aging, and resilience.
Digital technologies and artificial intelligence: mobile health, wearable sensors, digital phenotyping, big data, machine learning, digital twins, and trustworthy AI for health optimization.
Behavioral, social, and environmental determinants: lifestyle medicine, behavior change and self-quantification, social networks, community engagement, occupational and environmental health, and health equity.
Policy, systems, implementation, and methodology: value-based proactive care models, financing of prevention, implementation science, community-based ecosystems, and innovative study designs and evaluation methods for proactive health research.
The journal welcomes original research articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, brief reports, study protocols, registered reports, commentaries, and editorials. All submissions must demonstrate a clear connection to the proactive, preventive, or health-optimization dimension; manuscripts that focus solely on the clinical management of established disease without a substantive proactive or preventive component are outside the journal’s scope.
Proactive Health adheres to the highest standards of publication ethics and employs rigorous single-blind peer review. The editorial team is committed to fostering a global, multidisciplinary dialogue among researchers, clinicians, public health professionals, engineers, data scientists, policymakers, and patient and community advocates. By providing a dedicated platform for this rapidly growing field, the journal aspires to be a catalyst for health system transformation—from managing illness to generating health.