Back to Journals » Pragmatic and Observational Research » Call For Papers

Pragmatic and Observational Research

ISSN: 1179-7266


The following Article Collections/ Thematic Series are currently open for submissions:

Real world data and AI/machine learning for drug development and drug evaluations

Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Real world data and AI/machine learning for drug development and drug evaluations” in Pragmatic and Observational Research.

This Article Collection will focus on studies that use real world data (RWD) and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to conduct drug development and drug evaluation research. Our goal is to highlight the integration of RWD with AI/ML to promote pragmatic and observational research. 

RWD, such as electronic health records (EHRs) and insurance claims, when combined with AI/ML, offer a unique opportunity to develop innovative approaches to conduct drug development and evaluation research. By combining AI/ML and RWD, drug development and evaluation can become more data-driven, efficient, and patient-centric, ultimately leading to faster discovery, development, and delivery of safe and effective drugs. 

Manuscripts should be written for a broad target audience within the field of pragmatic and observational research. Manuscripts addressing the spectrum of the integration of RWD with AI/ML for drug development and evaluation research will be considered, with the following being of interest: 

  • Illustration of best practices of RWD with use cases demonstrating improved drug development and evaluation and health outcomes
  • The integration of drug development and evaluation with RWD and AI/ML, including EHRs, insurance claims, patient registries, and other data sources with linkage to public health entities
  • The development and applications of novel approaches (e.g., novel AI/ML and causal principled models) to study drug development and evaluation
  • Opportunities and challenges for digital health technologies to transform drug development and evaluation and improve patient care
  • The improvement of clinical research enrollment diversity for drug development and evaluation
  • Use cases of studying drug development and evaluation and enabling learning health systems and learning health communities
  • Infrastructure, including governance, IT support from EHRs, and key implementation best practices to support RWD and AI/ML to conduct research for drug development and evaluation

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisors for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member). Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, quoting the promo code ZNFGI to indicate that your submission is for consideration in this Article Collection.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31 December 2025. For questions about this Article Collection, including inquiries regarding discounts off of the article publishing charges, please contact Commissioning Editor Haoyang Yi at [email protected]

Guest Advisors

Jiang Bian, Professor & Chief Data Scientist, University of Florida

[email protected]

Dr. Bian is currently a Professor and Division Chief of Biomedical Informatics in the Department of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, at the University of Florida (UF) and the Chief Data Scientist & Chief Research Information Officer (CRIO) for the UF Health system. He also serves as the Chief Data Scientist for the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Consortium, Director of Biomedical Informatics program of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UF, and the Director of Cancer Informatics Shared Resource at the University of Florida Health Cancer Center (UFHCC). Dr. Bian has a diverse yet strong multi-disciplinary background and extensive expertise in machine learning, natural language processing, network science, ontology development and evaluation, semantic web technology and software engineering. He has extensive experience in developing informatics tools and systems, as well as expertise in data science methods for the analysis and interpretation of biomedical and textural data. Especially, he has a track record of building data infrastructure and using electronic health records (EHRs) for research and natural language processing (NLP) tools. 

Serena Guo, Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Dr. Guo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the University of Florida (UF) College of Pharmacy. She received her MD from Peking University in Beijing, China and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Guo conducts research in pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoinformatics, primarily focused on cardiometabolic diseases and neurodegenerative conditions (e.g., dementia) with the goals of promoting precision health and health equity. Her research draws on large real-world data (e.g., electronic health records and insurance claims data) and advanced analytics (e.g., AI/machine learning, causal-principled modeling, and geospatial analyses). 

Lixia Yao, CEO, Polygon Health Analytics LLC

[email protected]

Dr. Lixia Yao is the founder and CEO of Polygon Health Analytics LLC, which develops high-quality real-world data (RWD) and rigorous real-world evidence (RWE) in disease areas with pressing unmet medical needs. With two decades of experience in this field and by leading a team of data scientists and healthcare professionals and collaborating with world-renowned scholars and clinicians, she has published over 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles, including several high-impact publications in prestigious journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Genome Research, and Drug Discovery Today. Her H-index is 20. She is also the recipient of a Career Development Award in Biomedical Informatics (K01) from the National Library of Medicine for 2016-2019, a Fellow of American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA), the Chair of the AMIA KDDM working group from 2020-2022, and the Member Engagement Co-Chair for The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Oncology Special Interest Group for 2023-2024. Additionally, she serves as an adjunct associate professor in Department of Health Services Administration and Policy at Temple University.

View all papers in this article collection

Real-World Asthma Management: A Spotlight on Pragmatic and Observational Research

Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Real-World Asthma Management: A Spotlight on Pragmatic and Observational Research” in Pragmatic and Observational Research.

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease affecting millions of people worldwide. While significant advances have been made in understanding asthma pathophysiology and developing treatments, managing the condition in real-world clinical practice remains a challenge.

Classical randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are designed to maximize internal validity and to establish an unequivocal cause-and-effect relationship between an intervention and an outcome; however, these trials often exclude patients in minority groups, those with comorbidities, severe illness, or those that do not adhere to treatments. Consequently, there is a critical need for complementary data derived from pragmatic and observational studies that reflect the complexities of real-world asthma management.

To help bridge this gap, Pragmatic and Observational Research is publishing a new hot-topic Article Collection to put a spotlight on studies that evaluate outcomes associated with real-world clinical practice. In doing so, we aim to inform clinical guidelines, improve the generalizability of results, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

Key areas of focus for this Collection include (but are not limited to):

1. Prospective and Retrospective Observational Studies

2. Comparison of Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Interventions

3. Patient preference, satisfaction, convenience, acceptability and adherence

4. Pragmatic Clinical Trials

5. Real-World Data Collection Systems

6. Best practice and guideline reviews in real-world research

7. Statistical Approaches to real-world Research.

This collection is led by the Editor-In-Chief, Professor David Price, Founder and Head of The Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute, Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute, Singapore.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, using the promo code NBAJN for 20% off the advertised article processing charge and to indicate that your manuscript will be considered for the “Real-world Asthma Management: A Spotlight on Pragmatic and Observational Research” Collection. We will be welcoming relevant Original Research, Reviews and Editorials up until the 31 December 2025. Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

Please contact Haoyang Yi (Commissioning Editor) at [email protected] with any queries regarding this Article Collection.

 

 

 

View all papers in this article collection


Call For Papers

Editor-in-Chief: Professor David Price


To see where Pragmatic and Observational Research is indexed online view the Journal Metrics 

What is the advantage to you of publishing in Pragmatic and Observational Research?

  • It is an open access journal which means that your paper is available to anyone in the world to download for free directly from the Dove website.
  • Although Pragmatic and Observational Research receives many papers, unlike most traditional journals, your paper will not be rejected due to lack of space. We are an electronic journal and there are no limits on the number or size of the papers we can publish.
  • The time from submission to a decision being made on a paper can, in many journals, take some months and this is very frustrating for authors. Pragmatic and Observational Research has a quicker turnaround time than this. Generally peer review is complete within 3-4 weeks and the editor’s decision within 2-14 days of this. It is therefore very rare to have to wait more than 6 weeks for first editorial decision.
  • Many authors have found that our peer reviewer’s comments substantially add to their final papers.

To recover our editorial and production costs and continue to provide our content at no cost to readers we charge authors or their institution an article publishing charge.

PubMed Central
Pragmatic and Observational Research is indexed on PubMed Central (title abbreviation: Pragmat Obs Res). All published papers in this journal are submitted to PubMed for indexing straight away.

Become a Favored Author and receive real benefits

If you haven't already joined the Dove Press Favored Author Program I would encourage you to do so. Why? To receive real benefits like fast-tracking and a personal co-ordinator for your paper, as well as a discount on the publication processing fee.
Click here to go through to the Favored Author signup page.

Yours sincerely
Dr David Price
Editor-in-Chief
Pragmatic and Observational Research

Email: Editor-in-Chief 

Updated 11 October 2022