Acta Paediatrica

Acta Paediatrica: Overview

Acta Paediatrica — subtitled Nurturing the Child — is a peer-reviewed monthly journal at the forefront of international paediatric research. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Foundation Acta Paediatrica, a non-profit foundation hosted by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where the journal's editorial office has always been based and where all of its editors-in-chief have held professorships. The journal covers both clinical and experimental research in all areas of paediatrics and is read by the paediatric community worldwide as a source of the latest news and research in paediatric science.

Founded in 1921, Acta Paediatrica is one of the oldest continuously published paediatrics journals in the world, with more than a century of uninterrupted publication. Its scope spans neonatal medicine, developmental medicine, adolescent medicine, child health and environment, psychosomatic paediatrics, and child health in developing countries. The journal's stated original aim — to give studies from the Nordic countries a worldwide audience — has evolved into a fully international authorship, with the majority of papers now originating outside the Nordic region.

Publication Details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (on behalf of the Foundation Acta Paediatrica)
• Owner: Foundation Acta Paediatrica (non-profit, hosted by Karolinska Institute, Sweden)
• Print ISSN: 0803-5253
• Online ISSN (eISSN): 1651-2227
• Founded: 1921
• Frequency: Monthly (12 issues per year)
• Language: English
• Standard abbreviation: Acta Paediatr.

Aims and Scope

Acta Paediatrica is a general paediatrics journal covering clinical and experimental research across the full breadth of child health. Its officially stated areas of focus include:

• Neonatal medicine — including the management and outcomes of preterm and complicated neonates, respiratory support, nutritional management, and long-term neurodevelopmental assessment
• Developmental medicine — developmental trajectories, early interventions, and the influence of parental involvement and socio-economic factors on cognitive and physical development
• Adolescent medicine
• Child health and environment — environmental determinants of child health
• Psychosomatic paediatrics
• Child health in developing countries — a distinctive commitment among major paediatrics journals

The journal publishes original research articles, reviews, and shorter contributions, and it has historically published nearly 500 supplements — many of them doctoral dissertations by Nordic paediatricians, particularly in the early to mid twentieth century.

History

The journal was established in 1921 as a general paediatrics journal with the original aim of giving studies from the Nordic countries a worldwide audience. In a notable departure from the practice of the time — when most medical journals still published in national languages — Acta Paediatrica was originally trilingual, publishing papers in English, German, and French. It later became an English-only journal.

In 1964 the journal was renamed Acta Paediatrica Scandinavica, a title it carried until 1992, when it reverted to its original name, Acta Paediatrica. Since Rolf Zetterström became editor in the 1960s, the journal increasingly published studies from outside the Nordic countries; by the end of his tenure in the early 2000s, nearly two-thirds of papers were authored by non-Nordic researchers.

The journal's publishing history reflects the consolidation of twentieth-century medical publishing. It was published on behalf of the foundation by the Swedish publisher Almqvist & Wiksell from 1921 to 1992, then by the Norwegian publisher Universitetsforlaget from 1992 to 2000, by Taylor & Francis from 2000 to 2007, and by Blackwell Publishing (later Wiley-Blackwell) from 2007 onward.

Throughout these changes of commercial publisher, ownership has remained constant: the journal is owned by the non-profit Foundation Acta Paediatrica, hosted by the Karolinska Institute, and every editor-in-chief has been a Karolinska professor. This foundation ownership model is unusual among major medical journals and has preserved editorial continuity across more than a century.

Publisher and Editorial Leadership

The journal is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Directory records name Hugo Lagercrantz — the Karolinska Institute professor of paediatrics renowned for neonatal brain research — as editor-in-chief; readers should confirm the current masthead on the journal's official site, as editorial appointments change over time.

The foundation-based governance means the journal answers to a non-profit academic body rather than to commercial shareholders, a structure the journal's own historical accounts present as central to its identity and longevity.

Peer Review Process

Acta Paediatrica is a peer-reviewed journal. Manuscripts undergo expert peer review before acceptance; the journal's author guidelines on the Wiley Online Library platform set out the review model, formatting requirements, and ethical expectations in detail. As with most Wiley medical journals, submissions are handled through an online manuscript system with initial editorial screening followed by external peer review.

The journal's century-long reputation rests substantially on the selectivity and rigour of this review process, which has made publication in Acta Paediatrica a recognized mark of quality in paediatric research, particularly within the Nordic academic tradition that produced its famous dissertation supplements.

Indexing and Abstracting

As a leading paediatrics journal, Acta Paediatrica is indexed in the major biomedical databases, including MEDLINE/PubMed, the Science Citation Index, Scopus, Embase, and Current Contents. Its long publication run — continuous since 1921 — gives it one of the deepest citable archives in paediatrics.

Impact Metrics (Attributed)

The following figures are reported by third-party metric aggregators and are not official journal statistics; they should be verified against live databases:

• Journal Impact Factor: approximately 2.1 (2024–25 snapshot) to 2.4 (2023 snapshot) per aggregator records
• CiteScore: approximately 4.3 (Editage)
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): approximately 0.777; Q1 in Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health (Resurchify)
• h-index: 129–141 depending on source and snapshot date
• SNIP: approximately 1.28 (Editage)
• Scopus coverage: 1921–1985 and 1992–2025 per directory records

Open Access and Publication Model

Acta Paediatrica operates primarily on the subscription model through Wiley, with hybrid open-access options available to authors in line with Wiley's standard offerings (including funder-compliant open-access routes). Authors seeking the current article-processing charges and open-access terms should consult the journal's official author guidelines, as these are set by the publisher and change periodically.

Readership and Reach

Wiley's publisher materials describe Acta Paediatrica as informing members of the paediatric community around the world, with a substantial online readership — publisher-reported figures cite over one million unique visitors to the journal's Wiley Online Library pages and over one million full-text downloads in a single recent year. Its audience includes neonatologists, general paediatricians, developmental specialists, paediatric researchers, and child-health policymakers.

Notable Features

Several features distinguish Acta Paediatrica from other paediatrics journals. Its foundation ownership by a Karolinska-hosted non-profit is rare among major journals. Its supplement series — nearly 500 supplements, many of them Nordic doctoral dissertations — constitutes a unique historical archive of twentieth-century Scandinavian paediatric scholarship. Its explicit scope commitment to child health in developing countries gives it a global-health dimension that complements its Nordic heritage. And its trilingual origins in 1921 make it an early example of deliberate internationalization in medical publishing.

The Foundation Model: A Century of Non-Profit Ownership

One of the most distinctive facts about Acta Paediatrica is its ownership. The journal is owned by the Foundation Acta Paediatrica, a non-profit foundation hosted by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm — one of the world's leading medical universities and the institution that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The editorial office has always been based at Karolinska, and every editor-in-chief in the journal's history has been a Karolinska professor.

This arrangement has given the journal unusual stability. While commercial publishers have changed four times across the journal's century — from the Swedish academic publisher Almqvist & Wiksell through a Norwegian university press, Taylor & Francis, and finally Wiley-Blackwell — the foundation has provided continuous governance. Editorial policy is therefore set by an academic body with a mission to serve paediatric science rather than by shareholders, and the journal's historical accounts present this independence as central to its identity. For authors, foundation ownership means that publication decisions are insulated from commercial considerations; for readers, it underwrites the journal's reputation for editorial integrity.

The Karolinska connection also situates the journal within one of the strongest traditions of paediatric and neonatal research in the world. Sweden's system of population registers, universal child health services, and long-running birth cohort studies has made Nordic paediatrics disproportionately influential relative to the region's population, and Acta Paediatrica has been the primary international outlet for much of that work.

The Dissertation Supplements: A Unique Scholarly Archive

Among the journal's most historically significant features is its series of supplements — nearly 500 published over the journal's lifetime. In the early to mid twentieth century, these supplements primarily carried doctoral dissertations authored by paediatricians from the Nordic countries. In the Scandinavian academic tradition, the doctoral dissertation was (and often still is) published as a monograph or thesis volume, and Acta Paediatrica's supplements provided the formal publication channel for generations of Nordic paediatric doctorates.

This practice has left a remarkable archival legacy: the supplement series constitutes a near-complete published record of Scandinavian doctoral research in paediatrics across much of the twentieth century. For historians of medicine and for researchers tracing the development of ideas in neonatology, developmental medicine, and child health, the supplements are a primary source of exceptional depth. The tradition also illustrates the journal's historical role not merely as a research periodical but as an institution of Nordic academic life — the place where new paediatricians entered the scholarly record.

From Nordic Journal to International Forum

The journal's internationalization is one of the clearest editorial narratives in its history. Founded with the explicit aim of giving Nordic studies a worldwide audience, it published in English, German, and French at a time when most medical journals still used national languages — an early and deliberate act of internationalization. The 1964 renaming to Acta Paediatrica Scandinavica embraced the Nordic identity; the 1992 return to Acta Paediatrica acknowledged that the journal had outgrown a regional label.

The decisive shift came under Rolf Zetterström's editorship beginning in the 1960s. Zetterström actively solicited and published work from outside the Nordic countries, and by the end of his tenure in the early 2000s, nearly two-thirds of the journal's papers had non-Nordic authors. Today the journal is fully international in authorship, readership, and editorial scope, while retaining its Stockholm editorial office and Nordic institutional roots. This trajectory — from regional showcase to global forum — mirrors the broader internationalization of medical science in the late twentieth century, and Acta Paediatrica's archive documents that transition in unusual detail.

Scope in Depth: What the Journal Publishes

As a general paediatrics journal, Acta Paediatrica's scope is deliberately broad, but its stated focus areas reveal its priorities:

Neonatal medicine is a core strength, reflecting both the Karolinska neonatal tradition and the editorship of Hugo Lagercrantz, himself a distinguished neonatal brain researcher. The journal publishes work on the management of preterm and complicated neonates, respiratory support strategies, nutritional management, and long-term neurodevelopmental follow-up — topics where Nordic population-based follow-up studies have been world-leading.

Developmental medicine covers developmental trajectories from infancy through adolescence, the effects of early interventions, and the roles of parenting, family dynamics, and socio-economic conditions in shaping cognitive and physical development. Adolescent medicine addresses the distinct health needs of teenagers, an area of growing emphasis across paediatrics.

Child health and environment reflects the journal's attention to environmental determinants of health — from air quality and chemical exposures to the built environment — while psychosomatic paediatrics covers the interface of psychological and physical health in children. The explicit inclusion of child health in developing countries distinguishes Acta Paediatrica from many high-income-country journals and aligns it with global child-health priorities, giving researchers working in low-resource settings a respected venue.

The journal publishes original articles, systematic and narrative reviews, and shorter formats including brief reports and commentaries. Both clinical studies — trials, cohort studies, and observational research — and experimental work, including basic-science studies with paediatric relevance, fall within its remit.

Editorial Leadership and the Karolinska Tradition

Directory records name Hugo Lagercrantz as editor-in-chief. Lagercrantz is a professor of paediatrics at the Karolinska Institute whose research on the newborn brain — particularly the neurobiology of the transition from fetal to neonatal life and the effects of preterm birth on brain development — has been internationally influential. His editorship continues the unbroken tradition of Karolinska professors leading the journal. Readers should verify the current masthead on the journal's official Wiley pages, as editorial appointments are periodically renewed.

The editorial office's permanent base at Karolinska means the journal operates within one of the world's most concentrated biomedical research environments, with direct access to leading paediatric clinicians and scientists as editors, reviewers, and advisors.

Readership, Reach, and Influence

Wiley's publisher materials describe Acta Paediatrica as a publication that members of the paediatric community look to for the latest news and research in paediatric science. Reported usage figures — over a million unique visitors to the journal's online pages and over a million full-text downloads in a recent year — indicate a readership far beyond the Nordic countries, spanning clinicians, researchers, and policymakers worldwide.

The journal's influence is also institutional: for much of the twentieth century, publishing in Acta Paediatrica (or in its dissertation supplements) was a central milestone in a Nordic paediatrician's academic career. Its citation metrics — a Journal Impact Factor around 2.1–2.4 in recent snapshots, a CiteScore near 4.3, and an h-index exceeding 125 — place it solidly among the respected general paediatrics journals, though its historical significance arguably exceeds what citation counts capture.

Publishing Practicalities

Acta Paediatrica publishes twelve issues per year. Manuscripts are submitted through Wiley's online submission system, and the journal's author guidelines — hosted on the Wiley Online Library platform — specify formatting, ethical requirements (including statements on ethics approval and informed consent standard for medical journals), disclosure of conflicts of interest, and data-sharing expectations. The journal offers hybrid open-access publication, allowing authors to make individual articles freely available on payment of an article publication charge, in addition to the subscription route; authors with funder open-access mandates should consult the current guidelines for compliant options and any applicable charges.

Landmark Contributions and Research Traditions

Over more than a century, Acta Paediatrica has published research that shaped paediatric practice. Its pages carried foundational Nordic work in neonatology — including studies of respiratory distress, thermal regulation, and nutritional support of preterm infants that informed neonatal intensive care as it developed in the 1960s through 1980s. Developmental follow-up studies of preterm and low-birth-weight cohorts, a Nordic specialty thanks to population registers and universal health coverage, found a natural home in the journal and established methodologies for long-term neurodevelopmental assessment now used worldwide.

The journal also documented the evolution of paediatric subspecialties: paediatric cardiology, nephrology, endocrinology, and infectious diseases all matured partly through studies first reported in its pages. Its commitment to child health in developing countries brought attention to malnutrition, vaccine-preventable disease, and diarrhoeal illness at a time when few high-profile journals prioritized these topics. More recently, the journal has published influential work on childhood obesity, allergic disease trends, adolescent mental health, and the developmental origins of adult disease — reflecting the shifting burden of child morbidity in high-income countries.

The Journal's Place in Paediatric Publishing

Within the landscape of paediatrics journals, Acta Paediatrica occupies a distinctive position. Unlike journals owned by professional societies or commercial publishers, its foundation ownership gives it a hybrid character: the production and distribution muscle of a major international publisher (Wiley) combined with the mission-driven governance of an academic non-profit. Its monthly frequency and broad general-paediatrics scope place it alongside journals such as Pediatrics, Archives of Disease in Childhood, and The Journal of Pediatrics as a venue for high-quality work across the specialty, while its century-long archive and dissertation-supplement tradition give it a historical depth none of its competitors can match.

For prospective authors, the journal offers the combination of rigorous peer review, rapid monthly publication, wide international readership, and the prestige of a century-old title anchored at the Karolinska Institute. For readers and researchers, its freely browsable archive — stretching back to 1921 — is an irreplaceable resource for the history of paediatrics and for long-term follow-up studies that draw on decades of published Nordic cohort research.

Fields Not Publicly Disclosed

The following could not be verified from official sources at the time of research and are therefore left unstated rather than estimated: the current editor-in-chief and full editorial board roster (confirm on the live journal site); acceptance rate and review turnaround times; current article-processing charges; and detailed peer-review operational policies beyond the standard Wiley framework.