Call for Papers

Why publish in AAAI

AAAI is an open-access journal focused on the science and practice of asthma, allergy, immunology, and respiratory health. Respiratory diseases affect the air passages, including nasal passages, bronchi, and lungs, and include both infections and chronic conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive respiratory diseases. Allergic diseases represent hypersensitive immune responses to substances that enter or come in contact with the body. These realities shape AAAI’s publishing mission: to disseminate reliable, clinically relevant evidence and to support awareness and self-management strategies that improve outcomes.

Publishing in AAAI is designed to be practical for authors and useful for readers. As an open-access journal, articles remain freely available to view and download after publication, which can increase visibility and enable rapid knowledge transfer to clinicians, researchers, educators, and (where appropriate) patients and caregivers. AAAI also supports special issues and topical collections, which can bring focused attention to emerging themes within the journal’s scope.

What AAAI is seeking right now

AAAI welcomes submissions year-round. We are particularly interested in manuscripts that (1) address clinically meaningful questions, (2) strengthen self-management and prevention strategies, and (3) improve diagnostic or treatment decision-making for respiratory and immune-mediated disease. The journal’s scope includes asthma and a broad set of respiratory conditions, including (among others) COPD, bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary edema, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary hypertension, pleural effusion, pneumothorax, mesothelioma, obesity hypoventilation syndrome, and neuromuscular disorders affecting ventilation—when the work is relevant to respiratory outcomes and care.

Priority themes and manuscript angles

• Asthma management and control: phenotyping, severe asthma, exacerbation prevention, inhaler technique, adherence interventions, and patient education strategies with measurable outcomes.
• Allergy and airway inflammation: allergic triggers, hypersensitivity mechanisms, rhinitis–asthma links, immunotherapy approaches, and clinically relevant immune biomarkers.
• Respiratory infections and post-infectious care: pneumonia and tuberculosis studies that improve diagnosis, stratification, treatment pathways, and long-term outcomes.
• Cardiopulmonary interactions: pulmonary hypertension, embolism, edema, and respiratory complications that influence function, symptoms, or care decisions.
• Environmental and occupational exposures: indoor/outdoor air quality, workplace triggers, tobacco and smoking exposure, and prevention programs tied to outcomes.
• Special populations: pediatrics, older adults, pregnancy, comorbidity clusters, and resource-variable settings where implementation science is essential.
• Tools and monitoring: spirometry quality, symptom scoring, remote monitoring, pragmatic care pathways, and decision-support tools.

• severe asthma
• asthma action plan
• inhaler adherence
• airway hyperreactivity
• allergic rhinitis
• immunotherapy
• biomarker
• COPD
• pulmonary hypertension
• pneumonia
• tuberculosis
• spirometry
• air quality
• smoking prevention
• ventilation disorders

Article types welcomed

AAAI supports a variety of article formats to serve different evidence needs—from foundational research through clinical translation and practice improvement. Manuscripts should be written clearly for a global audience and should present conclusions that match the strength of the evidence.

Commonly submitted formats

• Original Research: clinical studies, observational cohorts, pragmatic evaluations, translational work, biomarker validation, and outcomes research.
• Reviews: narrative reviews, mini-reviews, and evidence syntheses that clarify current best practices and research gaps.
• Case Reports / Case Series: unusual presentations, diagnostic challenges, novel complications, or management lessons with clear learning points and appropriate consent/privacy safeguards.
• Editorials and Commentaries: focused perspectives that contextualize evidence, highlight emerging issues, or discuss implementation challenges.
• Abstracts: structured abstracts (e.g., from meetings or special calls) where permitted; typically limited word count and structured sections.
• Theses / Dissertations (where applicable): extended scholarly works supported by institutional approval documentation, handled according to journal guidance.

Special issues and themed calls

AAAI encourages proposals for special issues within the journal’s scope. Special issues can accelerate visibility for emerging topics, bring papers together under a coherent theme, and foster focused review and publication. The journal’s special-issue guidance emphasizes collaboration between editors and guest editors in crafting a proposal and a Call for Papers, while maintaining the journal’s editorial policies and ethical standards throughout review and revision.

Why special issues work well

• Theme coherence: papers are collected under a focused topic, making the issue easier to discover and cite.
• Visibility for emerging areas: special issues can help a developing field gain traction and clarity.
• Community building: guest editors can engage a new circle of authors, reviewers, and readers.
• Innovation space: themed issues can responsibly explore new methods or perspectives inside the journal’s scope.

What a strong special-issue proposal includes

To reduce delays, a proposal should clearly define the theme, its relevance to AAAI’s aims and scope, and why the theme matters now. It should also include a practical plan for editor recruitment, reviewer identification, and a realistic schedule. When choosing the topic, guest editors should ensure it fits within the journal’s scope and has the potential to interest the journal’s reader base; it also helps to consider how citation trends might evolve after publication.

How to submit

AAAI accepts submissions through its online submission workflow. If your submission is interrupted, the platform guidance indicates that data may be saved and resumed from the point of interruption. Before submitting, authors should review the Author Guidelines and any manuscript preparation instructions to ensure the manuscript is complete and formatted appropriately for peer review and production.

A submission-ready checklist

• Manuscript file: complete text with clear structure (title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references).
• Ethics statements: IRB/ethics approval (if applicable), informed consent (if applicable), and privacy protections.
• Figures/tables: clearly labeled, referenced in text, and accompanied by captions/legends.
• Authorship and contributions: list of authors, affiliations, and contributions consistent with journal policies.
• Conflicts of interest and funding: disclose funding sources and any potential competing interests.
• Cover letter (recommended): short explanation of novelty, fit with AAAI scope, and any special issue relevance.
• Suggested reviewers (optional where allowed): appropriate experts without conflicts of interest.

Publication fees, waivers, and fairness

AAAI indicates that journal operations are supported through contributor/research sponsor/institutional funding and may involve processing or publishing charges (APCs). The journal’s guidance also indicates that if an institution holds a membership and the author is from the member institution, processing and publishing costs may be covered by the membership with no further charge to the author. In addition, the journal notes that discounts may be considered for authors from underdeveloped countries, with limited funding, or for articles of exceptional significance, and that waiver requests should be made during submission with a brief letter of explanation.

To keep the process transparent and predictable for authors, we recommend making any waiver or discount request early—at initial submission—so that it can be reviewed in parallel with editorial processing. Decisions are typically communicated as part of the publication process, and authors should avoid delaying waiver requests until after acceptance.

Best practices when requesting a waiver

• Request the waiver during submission, not after acceptance.
• Keep the explanation concise and factual (funding status, institutional policy, eligibility context).
• Avoid sensitive personal details; a short funding statement is usually sufficient.
• Confirm whether your institution has any membership arrangement that may cover charges.

Ethics, quality, and what happens after you submit

AAAI expects submissions to follow responsible research and publishing standards. A well-prepared manuscript helps reviewers focus on scientific value rather than avoidable formatting or reporting gaps. After submission, manuscripts typically undergo editorial screening to confirm scope fit, basic completeness, and ethical readiness (e.g., approvals/consent statements). Manuscripts then proceed through peer review according to journal policies.

In practical terms, authors can reduce revision cycles by ensuring that methods are complete, outcomes are clearly defined, and claims are proportional to evidence. If your work includes patient data, images, or case details, include explicit statements about consent and de-identification. If your work involves interventions, report harms/adverse events in addition to benefits.