We expect much from surveillance and epidemiologic data for the practice of public health and the advancement of health sciences, including tracking the leading edge of epidemics, informing the public and scientific community, advocacy and resource allocation for populations most severely affected, developing and targeting effective interventions, monitoring and evaluating the impact of programs, and guiding a future research agenda. The methods and scope of HIV/AIDS surveillance and epidemiology (and relevant social and behavioral approaches) including applications to related epidemics of other diseases, has especially expanded in recent years. Moreover, public health agencies are increasingly conducting applied research in partnership with academia and community-based organizations. Given these multiple functions, the pace of evolution in the field and the increasing number of partners involved, we have long felt that a journal devoted to HIV/AIDS [and related sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), tuberculosis (TB) and viral hepatitis] surveillance and population-level epidemiologic studies was missing in the scientific literature.

Population-based surveillance and related epidemiologic studies are poised to make the most immediate impact on public health decisions. There are now multiple, innovative public health surveillance techniques to track incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS and related epidemics in general and high-risk populations. Public Health agencies are, by necessity, called upon to increase the quantity and quality of supplemental epidemiologic research, analyses and interpretation of findings used as a basis for evidence-based prevention and care program planning. In addition, as global and national population-level HIV and related disease interventions require increasingly larger amounts of resources, the need to implement carefully targeted evidence-based public health interventions with adequate monitoring, evaluation and peer-reviewed quality assurance has never been greater. Public health practitioners worldwide therefore need ready access to basic HIV/AIDS surveillance and epidemiologic data as well as the cutting edge methods of the field.

Our proposition is that this scope of work has not been adequately and incisively covered by scientific journals in general nor by those focused on HIV/AIDS and related STDs, TB and viral hepatitis in particular. The need to establish a body of exemplary reference literature which has undergone quality assurance through rigorous peer review, disseminate such findings and provide continuing education through open access media is particularly acute in parts of the world most adversely affected by HIV and related conditions.