Aims and Scope

Aim of the journal

AAAI exists to strengthen the practical evidence base for asthma, allergy, immunology, and respiratory medicine. The journal’s legacy aim emphasizes awareness for respiratory-disease self-management and interventions so that both patients and clinicians can participate in shared decision-making and proactive care. Alongside this, AAAI seeks to provide meaningful opportunities for healthcare professionals and researchers to gain insights into respiratory diseases through research studies.

In modern terms, AAAI’s aim can be understood as publishing work that is both scientifically sound and clinically usable: research that clarifies mechanisms and phenotypes, evaluates interventions and care pathways, and supports patient-centered outcomes across varied healthcare settings. We welcome studies that improve diagnostic accuracy, reduce exacerbations and preventable harm, and enhance quality of life—whether the setting is a specialty clinic, a general practice environment, or population-based programs where environmental and behavioral factors influence respiratory health.

Scope of the journal

AAAI’s scope is centered on respiratory disease, allergy, and immunology—particularly the rapidly increasing burden of chronic respiratory conditions. The journal’s legacy scope statement highlights the goal of assisting patients in self-monitoring and enabling healthcare professionals to make informed decisions based on up-to-date evidence. In this spirit, AAAI encourages authors, doctors, and researchers to submit updated manuscripts across a broad respiratory-care landscape.

Respiratory conditions and domains within scope

The journal explicitly welcomes manuscripts relevant to (including but not limited to) asthma and multiple acute and chronic respiratory diseases. These areas help define AAAI’s coverage across airways, alveoli, pleura, pulmonary vasculature, and the chest wall—recognizing that real-world respiratory care often involves overlapping phenotypes and comorbidities.

• Airway diseases: asthma; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); acute and chronic bronchitis; emphysema.
• Infectious and inflammatory lung disease: pneumonia; tuberculosis; acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) where relevant to respiratory-care pathways.
• Genetic and structural conditions: cystic fibrosis; diseases affecting the air sacs (alveoli).
• Vascular and fluid-related lung conditions: pulmonary edema; pulmonary embolism; pulmonary hypertension; diseases affecting blood vessels.
• Pleural and thoracic conditions: pleural effusion; pneumothorax; mesothelioma; diseases affecting the pleura.
• Chest wall and ventilation disorders: obesity hypoventilation syndrome; neuromuscular disorders impacting ventilation; diseases affecting the chest wall.
• Oncologic respiratory relevance: lung cancer where the work informs respiratory outcomes, symptom management, or pulmonary complications.

Key topic clusters we actively encourage

To help authors quickly understand what “good fit” looks like, AAAI encourages submissions in the following clusters. These clusters are intentionally broad: they reflect how asthma/allergy/immunology research is conducted—from molecular mechanisms through clinical pathways to population impacts.

• Asthma across the life course: pediatric, adolescent, and adult asthma; severe asthma; phenotypes/endotypes; exacerbation prevention.
• Allergic disease affecting respiratory health: allergic rhinitis and asthma interaction; hypersensitivity and triggers; immunotherapy research tied to respiratory outcomes.
• Clinical immunology relevant to airways: immune dysregulation, biomarkers, inflammatory pathways, and translational targets with respiratory implications.
• Diagnostics and monitoring: spirometry and lung-function assessment; biomarkers; imaging where respiratory decision-making is improved; remote monitoring.
• Interventions and self-management: education, adherence, inhaler technique, action plans, digital health tools, and behavior change interventions that measurably affect outcomes.
• Environmental and occupational health: exposures, indoor/outdoor air quality, workplace triggers, smoking and second-hand smoke, and policy-relevant evidence.
• Health services & implementation: care pathways, accessibility, guideline adherence, equity considerations, and outcome improvement initiatives.

• asthma control
• exacerbation
• COPD
• airway inflammation
• allergic rhinitis
• immunotherapy
• spirometry
• biomarkers
• indoor air quality
• patient education
• adherence
• inhaler technique
• pulmonary hypertension
• ARDS
• tuberculosis

What kinds of manuscripts AAAI seeks

AAAI aims to be useful to clinicians and researchers. That means the journal welcomes a range of article types—so long as the work is ethically conducted, transparently reported, and appropriately interpreted. AAAI’s author-facing pages also emphasize submission accessibility and web-compatible workflows, which aligns with the journal’s goal of reducing friction in legitimate scholarly communication.

Research designs and evidence types

• Clinical research: observational cohorts, cross-sectional studies, case-control analyses, pragmatic trials, and well-justified interventional studies.
• Translational science: biomarker validation, mechanistic studies tied to clinical significance, and proof-of-concept work with clear limits.
• Public-health and exposure science: surveillance, exposure-outcome analysis, risk modeling, and community-level interventions relevant to respiratory care.
• Systematic reviews and narrative reviews: evidence syntheses that follow accepted methods and clearly describe search strategy and inclusion criteria (for systematic reviews).
• Case reports / case series: diagnostic dilemmas, unexpected adverse events, rare comorbidities, or management lessons that generalize beyond the individual case.
• Methods and tools: validated instruments, monitoring tools, analytic approaches, and reporting frameworks that improve respiratory research quality.

Article formats that support clinical decision-making

Because the journal’s aim includes shared decision-making and proactive care, we strongly encourage formats that translate evidence into practical use. Examples include: clinically oriented reviews; outcome-focused original research; decision-support tools; and studies that evaluate adherence, education, and self-monitoring interventions.

If your manuscript has a strong clinical practice component, it helps to be explicit about: (1) who the recommendation applies to, (2) the benefits and harms, (3) feasibility in typical practice settings, and (4) what further evidence would change the conclusion.

Scope boundaries and common reasons manuscripts fall outside scope

AAAI’s scope is broad, but it is not unlimited. The simplest scope boundary is this: the manuscript must materially contribute to understanding, preventing, diagnosing, treating, or managing respiratory disease, allergy, or immunology in a way that AAAI’s audience can use.

Typically out of scope (unless a clear respiratory link is demonstrated)

• Work focused on non-respiratory organ systems without a justified respiratory/allergy/immunology connection.
• Purely descriptive laboratory findings with no clinical/biological interpretation relevant to respiratory outcomes.
• Single-case narratives without a clear learning point, ethical consent, or sufficient clinical reasoning.
• Manuscripts lacking transparent methods, reliable data provenance, or adequate references for key claims.
• Studies that are primarily commercial promotion rather than scientific evaluation (e.g., marketing-style claims without evidence).

Author guidance: how to align your submission with AAAI’s scope

A well-aligned submission reduces delays and improves peer-review quality. Below is practical guidance that reflects common editorial expectations in respiratory and immunology publishing, and aligns with AAAI’s stated emphasis on decision-making and proactive care.

Before submission: self-check for fit and readiness

• State the clinical or scientific question early: what problem are you solving, and for whom?
• Use accepted clinical definitions: define asthma/COPD phenotypes, severity categories, and diagnostic criteria you rely on.
• Report outcomes that matter: exacerbations, hospitalizations, validated symptom scores, lung function, quality of life, or meaningful biomarkers.
• Be explicit about exposures: allergens, smoking status, environmental measurements, occupational hazards, or seasonal effects.
• Document ethics and consent: especially for patient data, images, or identifiable clinical narratives.
• Write for mixed audiences: include enough background for non-specialists without diluting technical accuracy.

Reporting expectations: what “transparent” looks like

Transparency is not about writing longer manuscripts; it is about writing manuscripts that a careful reader can interpret and (where applicable) reproduce. We recommend that authors:

• Describe participant selection, timing, and setting so external validity can be judged.
• Provide clear statistical rationale and handle missing data responsibly.
• Distinguish prespecified outcomes from exploratory findings.
• Report harms/adverse events when interventions or medications are involved.
• Use consistent terminology and define abbreviations early.

Special issues and emerging themes

AAAI supports topical collections and special issues that extend the journal’s scope into emerging or fast-moving areas—while remaining anchored to respiratory-care relevance. Special issues work best when they are cohesive (a clear theme), timely (an active research frontier), and balanced (invited and open submissions), and when they maintain the same peer-review and ethics standards as regular issues.

Examples of special-issue directions that align well with AAAI’s aims include: severe asthma phenotyping, digital self-monitoring tools, indoor air interventions, allergic rhinitis and asthma comorbidity management, immunotherapy outcomes, and respiratory impacts of occupational exposures.