About Journal of Digestive Diseases

Journal of Digestive Diseases

Overview and identity

The Journal of Digestive Diseases is an English-language medical journal based in Shanghai, China, and serving an international readership in gastroenterology and hepatology. It is the official English-language journal of the Chinese Society of Gastroenterology, the national professional society for specialists in digestive diseases in China, and it is published by Wiley. The journal is identified by print ISSN 1751-2972 and online ISSN 1751-2980, and its standard abbreviation is J Dig Dis. Its stated purpose is to operate as an international journal of gastroenterology and hepatology rather than as a purely national bulletin: it publishes peer-reviewed original papers, review articles and commentaries concerned with research relating to the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon, liver, biliary tract and pancreas. Because Chinese journal families frequently include sister titles with similar names, the journal should always be cited by its exact title and ISSN, which distinguish it from Chinese-language gastroenterology titles published in Shanghai and elsewhere.

Publisher, society and editorial leadership

The journal's publishing arrangement links a Chinese learned society with an international commercial publisher. The Chinese Society of Gastroenterology provides the professional home and the society affiliation, while Wiley provides the production, distribution and online platform through Wiley Online Library. Listings for the journal name Jing-Yuan Fang and Zhiping Li among its editors, and Jing-Yuan Fang of Shanghai is a prominent figure in Chinese gastroenterology whose own publication record includes a substantial body of work in the journal itself. The editorial model is therefore a hybrid that is common among China's leading English-language medical titles: editorial expertise is anchored in Chinese academic medicine, in this case strongly associated with Shanghai, while the publishing infrastructure, global marketing and indexing relationships are those of a major international house. For authors, this arrangement offers the visibility of a Wiley journal combined with the society backing of China's national gastroenterology organisation.

Scope and subject coverage

The scope of the Journal of Digestive Diseases covers the full anatomical and clinical range of digestive medicine. Its published content addresses diseases of the oesophagus, including reflux disease and oesophageal cancer; gastric disorders, including Helicobacter pylori infection, peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer; intestinal diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer and functional bowel disorders; liver diseases, including viral hepatitis, cirrhosis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; diseases of the biliary tract; and pancreatic diseases, including pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Research listings for the journal show recurring themes of internal medicine, gastroenterology, surgery, disease mechanisms and pathology, with particularly frequent attention to Helicobacter pylori, inflammatory bowel disease and cirrhosis. The journal also publishes themed collections, including a themed collection on inflammatory bowel disease, reflecting the growing clinical importance of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in China, where incidence has risen markedly with urbanisation and dietary change.

Article types and editorial process

The journal publishes peer-reviewed original papers, review articles and commentaries, and its author-facing metrics indicate a selective editorial process. Wiley's journal page reports an acceptance rate of around 8 per cent and a median time from submission to first decision of around six days, figures that describe a high-volume, fast-screening editorial office which declines most submissions, many of them without external review. That selectivity is consistent with the journal's position as a society flagship seeking international standing: it must balance the interests of its Chinese society membership, who form a large part of its author base, against the citation performance expected of an indexed international title. Manuscripts are handled through Wiley's standard submission and peer-review systems, and published articles appear online ahead of their assignment to one of the journal's twelve issues per year.

Indexing, metrics and standing

The journal is indexed in the major biomedical databases, and its coverage in the Ovid and Wiley listings runs from February 2007 to the present. Its 2025 Journal Impact Factor, as reported in the Journal Citation Reports, is 2.7, and its Scopus CiteScore is reported at 4.0, placing it in the second quartile (Q2) for gastroenterology, with a CiteScore percentile in the high fifties in the Medicine – Gastroenterology category. SCImago data assign the journal an h-index of 65 and an SJR of around 0.789. These metrics place the Journal of Digestive Diseases in the middle tier of international gastroenterology journals: below the leading American and European society titles, but firmly established as a citable, indexed venue in which Chinese and Asia-Pacific digestive research reaches a global audience. Its citation record includes widely referenced work such as the 2010 update on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease guidance, illustrating its role in disseminating Chinese clinical guidance in English.

Place in Chinese gastroenterology

Within China, the journal occupies a distinctive niche. Chinese gastroenterologists also publish in Chinese-language titles such as the Chinese Journal of Gastroenterology, published by the Shanghai Institute of Digestive Diseases at Renji Hospital, which serve domestic clinical communication. The Journal of Digestive Diseases, by contrast, is the English-language face of the Chinese Society of Gastroenterology: the venue through which the society presents Chinese digestive research, Chinese patient data and Chinese guideline work to readers who do not read Chinese. That function matters because China carries an exceptionally large burden of digestive disease, including some of the world's highest rates of gastric cancer and chronic hepatitis B related liver disease, and research based on Chinese cohorts is of direct interest to clinicians and researchers internationally. The journal's Shanghai base reflects the city's standing as one of the principal centres of Chinese academic gastroenterology.

Readership and authorship

The journal's readership comprises gastroenterologists, hepatologists, digestive endoscopists, gastrointestinal surgeons and researchers in related basic sciences, in China, across the Asia-Pacific region and worldwide. Its authorship is similarly international but with a strong Chinese and East Asian core, reflecting both its society ownership and the volume of digestive research produced in the region. Bibliometric listings show frequent contributing authors from Chinese academic centres, alongside authors such as Khean-Lee Goh from Malaysia, whose repeated presence underlines the journal's Asia-Pacific character. For early-career Chinese researchers, publication in the journal offers a recognised, indexed English-language credit; for international readers, it offers a window into the epidemiology, endoscopic practice and therapeutic research of the world's most populous digestive-disease patient base.

Access and publication model

The journal is published by Wiley on a subscription-based model with open-access options for individual articles. Wiley's institutional agreements mean that corresponding authors at participating universities, including a number of European institutions, can publish open access in the journal without paying an article processing charge directly, under transformative agreements that run to the end of 2026 in the listing consulted. Articles are available through Wiley Online Library and through library platforms such as Ovid, which lists the journal with PDF coverage from February 2007 onward. The journal publishes twelve issues a year, giving it a monthly rhythm appropriate to a fast-moving clinical specialty.

How to cite and identify the journal

For librarians, researchers and directory users, the reliable identifiers of the Journal of Digestive Diseases are its title, its print ISSN 1751-2972 and online ISSN 1751-2980, its publisher Wiley, and its status as the official English-language journal of the Chinese Society of Gastroenterology. It should not be confused with Digestive Diseases, a separate Karger journal based in Switzerland, nor with the various Chinese-language digestive journals published in China, such as the World Chinese Journal of Digestology or the Chinese Journal of Digestion. Used with its ISSN, the title uniquely identifies the Shanghai-based, Wiley-published society journal described in this profile.