About the Journal

Brief history

The journal ‘Saúde em Debate’, created in 1976, is a publication of the Brazilian Center for Health Studies (CEBES), initially available in print (ISSN 0103-1104) and, from 2014, in an online version (ISSN 2358-2898). It follows a continuous flow modality, maintaining the organization in regular quarterly (online) and special thematic (online) issues, which can be printed upon specific demand.

About the publisher

CEBES is a non-profit social organization, created in 1976, with the motto “health is democracy, democracy is health”, which reflects the close connection between the struggle for a just and democratic society and the defense of the right to health as a fundamental human right. Since its inception, the entity has been concerned with the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge that would contribute to debates on the health problems of the population, health policy, and the construction of universal, comprehensive, and egalitarian health systems. In this sense, it was a central protagonist of the Health Reform Movement (MRS) and the creation of the Unified Health System (SUS) in Brazil. ‘Saúde em Debate’ has become the main vehicle for disseminating the thought of the Brazilian Health Reform (RSB). Throughout its five decades, it has remained a space for the dissemination of critical thinking about collective health, health policy, and the advances and challenges faced by universal health systems, nationally and internationally. With this, CEBES has contributed to the formation of a network of activists with the potential to influence and operationalize health policies.

Funding sources

‘Saúde em Debate’ does not work with ads and publicity. CEBES grants scholarships to support the journal’s technical team. We submit projects to calls for Editorial Programs of CNPq and other development agencies in Brazil to ensure the journal’s financial sustainability.

In addition, ‘Saúde em Debate’ publishes special thematic issues financed through institutional partnerships. The Editorial Committee evaluates the proposal for thematic issues and, if approved, an open call is made for the collection of manuscripts. The process for submitting and assessing manuscripts follows the same criteria as for regular issues; in this case, authors are exempt from the publication fee.

'Saúde em Debate' does not charge submission fees. A publication fee of R$ 1,000 (updated in February 2026) is charged; for manuscripts approved for the interview and review sections, the fee is R$ 800. The Editorial Committee evaluates requests for a discount or exemption from the publication fee.

Updates and history

‘Saúde em Debate’ is the first Brazilian scientific journal in the field of public health. It is among the national journals that publish the most analyses of health policies, stimulating debate on current problems in health systems and major issues in national and international health. It is recognized as one of the main vehicles for disseminating RSB thought and as a field of academic study, including dissertations and theses.

The journal has implemented a permanent qualification process for the editorial team, with participation by editors and technical staff in events, courses, and training, especially offered by the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) and the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (Abec).

Main achievements of the last few years of ‘Saúde em Debate’:

2025

  • Expansion to three editors-in-chief, with academic training and experience in the health area, who meet periodically to discuss and define the themes and editorial strategies of the regular issues and the publication of thematic special issues.
  • Thorough review of policies and instructions to authors.
  • Update and modernization of the ‘Saúde em Debate’ website.
  • Update of the Editorial Board, aiming to contemplate the principles of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) in the editorial process.
  • Inclusion of a plugin with the DEIA Questionnaire in the Open Journal Systems (OJS) system of ‘Saúde em Debate’ to identify users’ gender, race, and ethnicity.
  • Encouragement for authors to publish their texts in English with a view to internationalization. Currently, about 45% of published manuscripts are translated into English.
  • Adequacy of standards for indexing in new databases.

2024

  • Adoption of the practice of Continuous Publications, maintaining the organization in regular issues with quarterly periodicity, and eventually special thematic issues.
  • Obtaining financial support from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)/Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) through call No. 30/2023.
  • Association with Agência Bori (a service that connects Brazilian science to journalists from all areas of coverage), which has given visibility to articles published in ‘Saúde em Debate’ that address topics of journalistic interest and relevant to the general public.

2023

  • Expansion of the number of associate editors, specialized in different areas of knowledge, who are guided and advised by the editors-in-chief and the executive editor. The expansion and renewal of associate editors are carried out periodically in response to specific demands and recommendations from the editors-in-chief.

2022

  • Obtaining financial support from CNPq through call No. 15/2021.
  • It started to make the articles available on the official website in PDF in individual format, including translations.
  • Modernization of article PDFs with a script that offers links in citations throughout the text, so that the user can quickly access the corresponding reference.

Indicators

‘Saúde em Debate’ is classified as A2 in QUALIS/CAPES – the ‘mother area’ of collective health. In the Google Scholar ranking, it is among the first scientific journals in Brazil. Access metrics in https://analytics.scielo.org/?journal=0103-1104&collection=scl.

Open access

The journal follows the Open Access model, allowing free, virtual access to all published texts without any restrictions (including financial ones).

Open Access is the condition in which the copyright holder of an academic work grants rights of use to third parties using an open license (Creative Commons Attribution, CC-BY), allowing immediate free access to the work and authorizing any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of the articles, crawl them for indexing, pass it as data to software or use it for any other lawful purpose.

Open science compliance

‘Saúde em Debate’ adopts the Golden Open Access policy, with articles available for free, full access on the internet.

Authors, at the time of submission, must complete the Form on compliance with Open Science and upload it to the OJS system during the file upload step, under ‘Components of the article, Complementary document’.

Focus and scope

‘Saúde em Debate’ publishes manuscripts that contribute to scientific knowledge and practice in the field of public health, especially those that incorporate the dimensions of health policy, planning, and/or management into their objects. It is aimed at the academic community, health workers, managers, other social policy actors, social movements, and the general population.

Digital preservation

The journal is part of the SciELO Network and adheres to the standards defined in the SciELO Program’s Digital Preservation Policy. SciELO uses the infrastructure of the Carinian Preservation Network, Lockss for the preservation of its collections. Currently, publications from 2011 onwards are available in SciELO. The complete collection, started in 1976, can be found in the digital collections of the DocPro platform, which promotes the digital legal deposit at the National Library, available from: https://www.docvirt.com/asp/saudeemdebate/default.asp.

Indexing sources

Collections

Indexing bases

Thematic repositories

Periódica, Índice de Revistas Latinoamericanas en Ciencias

Directories

Diadorim
DOAJ
Miguilim: Diretório das revistas científicas eletrônicas brasileiras
The journal is affiliated with ABEC.

Bibliographic file

Title of the journal: Saúde em Debate
Abbreviated title: Saúde Debate, used in bibliographies, footnotes, references, and bibliographic captions
Publication of: Brazilian Center for Health Studies (CEBES)
Periodicity: quarterly; at the discretion of the Editorial Committee, special thematic issues are published and follow the same submission and evaluation process as regular issues
Publication method: continuous, organized in regular issues and in special thematic issues
Year of creation of the journal: 1976

Websites and social media

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/cebesbrasil
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cebesbrasil?igsh=MTloZW5hbDF3emEwbg==
X: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2FCebesBR
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CebesNacional

Contact

Editors-in-chief (decisions and complaints)
Avenida Brasil, 4.036, sala 802
Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brazil – CEP 21040-361
E-mail: editorsaudedebate@cebes.org.br

Executive editor (editorial production)
Correspondence
Avenida Brasil, 4.036, sala 802
Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brazil – CEP 21040-361
Telefone: + 55 (21) 97198-8249
E-mail: revista@saudeemdebate.org.br