About Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie

Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie

The Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie is the leading German-language peer-reviewed journal for aging research and geriatric medicine, published eight times a year by Springer Medizin in Heidelberg. Founded in 1968 as the Zeitschrift für Gerontologie and carrying its current title since 1995, it serves as the official organ of four professional societies: the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, the Bundesverband Geriatrie, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geriatrie and the Austrian Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology. Indexed in MEDLINE, Scopus and the Science and Social Sciences Citation Indexes, it bridges the biological, medical, psychological and sociological dimensions of aging for researchers and clinicians across the German-speaking world.

Overview

The Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie is published in German, eight times a year, by Springer Science+Business Media through its medical imprint Springer Medizin, based in Heidelberg. It is a peer-reviewed journal covering the full spectrum of gerontology, the science of aging, and geriatrics, the medicine of old age. The journal's standard abbreviation is Z. Gerontol. Geriatr., and it carries the print ISSN 0948-6704 and the online ISSN 1435-1269.

The journal's defining institutional feature is its role as the official organ of four societies: the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gerontologie und Geriatrie (DGGG), the Bundesverband Geriatrie e.V. (BVG), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geriatrie e.V. (DGG) and the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Geriatrie und Gerontologie (ÖGGG). This quadruple society backing gives the journal a uniquely broad mandate, spanning the scientific study of aging, the clinical practice of geriatric medicine and the organization of geriatric care in Germany and Austria.

The journal is abstracted and indexed in the major international databases, including Index Medicus/MEDLINE and PubMed, Scopus, the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, Current Contents in Clinical Medicine and in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Embase, PsycINFO, Biological Abstracts and the EBSCO and ProQuest databases. It operates on a hybrid open-access model. Its 2017 impact factor was reported at 1.160, and more recent metrics include a 2024 CiteScore of 2.1. The Heidelberg University Library catalog names Hans-Werner Wahl as editor of the journal. On the SpringerMedizin platform, the journal's coverage runs from volume 31 (1998) to volume 59 (2026), documenting nearly three decades of continuous publication under the Springer imprint.

History

The journal was established in 1968 under the title Zeitschrift für Gerontologie, at a time when the scientific study of aging was emerging as a distinct interdisciplinary field in Germany. The post-war decades had seen the founding of gerontological societies and the first academic programs devoted to aging, and a dedicated journal was needed to give the field a publication of its own. The early years of the journal, published with the ISSN 0044-281X, coincided with the professionalization of geriatric medicine and the growth of social gerontology in the German-speaking countries.

In 1995 the journal adopted its current title, Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, reflecting the growing importance of clinical geriatrics alongside the broader science of gerontology. The renaming signaled that the journal would serve both the researchers studying the biology, psychology and sociology of aging and the physicians treating older patients. Around the same period, the publishing history shows a transition through the Steinkopff publishing house in Darmstadt and later Heidelberg, before the journal moved fully into the Springer program; the European Journal of Geriatrics was absorbed into the title along the way.

Since 1998 the journal has been published by Springer, initially under the Springer imprint and later under Springer Medizin, the group's medical publishing brand based in Heidelberg. Under Springer, the journal expanded its indexing and international visibility, entered the major citation databases and adopted online-first publication alongside its print issues. The society backing also grew: today the journal is the joint organ of the German Society for Gerontology and Geriatrics, the Federal Association of Geriatrics, the German Society for Geriatrics and the Austrian Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology, a constellation that mirrors the increasing integration of research, clinical practice and health policy in the field of aging.

Content and Sections

The journal's editorial program covers all developments in aging research, organized to a large extent in topic-based issues. Each themed issue treats a subject in depth, drawing contributions from across the disciplines that make up gerontology: the biology and basic research of aging, geriatric medicine, psychology, sociology and practical elder care. This thematic structure allows the journal to provide comprehensive overviews of current questions, from perioperative fluid and pain management in trauma surgery of the elderly to the prevention of violence in nursing care, and from the interplay of vision, cognition and neurodegeneration to the hormonal treatment of ovarian stimulation in older patients.

Beyond the themed issues, the journal publishes original research articles, reviews and contributions on methodology and health services research. A distinctive feature is its function as a record of the professional societies: it publishes the abstracts of the annual congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geriatrie and the abstracts of the annual meeting of the Austrian Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology, documenting the current research output of the field. Special issues supplement the regular program, allowing the journal to respond to emerging topics and to the needs of its society partners.

The journal's content thus serves two audiences at once. For researchers, it offers peer-reviewed findings in the biology, psychology and sociology of aging, with the visibility that comes from indexing in MEDLINE, Scopus and the citation indexes. For clinicians and care professionals, it provides clinically relevant overviews, guideline-related content and the society communications that shape geriatric practice in Germany and Austria. The bilingual abstracting and the hybrid open-access model extend the reach of individual articles beyond the subscriber base.

Publisher and Organization

The Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie is published by Springer Medizin, the medical publishing imprint of Springer Science+Business Media, based in Heidelberg. Springer Medizin operates the journal's online platform, where the archive from volume 31 (1998) to the current volume is available, and handles production, distribution and the hybrid open-access program. The journal is assigned the DOI prefix 10.1007/391 and is listed in the Springer portfolio under journal number 391.

The institutional backbone of the journal is formed by its four carrier societies: the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gerontologie und Geriatrie (DGGG), the Bundesverband Geriatrie e.V. (BVG), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geriatrie e.V. (DGG) and the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Geriatrie und Gerontologie (ÖGGG). These societies represent the scientific, clinical and organizational dimensions of aging and old-age medicine in Germany and Austria, and their joint ownership of the journal's organ function gives it an authority that few specialist titles can match. The Heidelberg University Library catalog names Hans-Werner Wahl as the journal's editor. Current circulation and subscription figures are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is the SpringerMedizin platform and the SpringerLink journal page, where current issues, the online archive and article-level content are available. Through these platforms, readers can access abstracts and full texts, search the archive back to 1998 and follow articles published online ahead of the print issue. The hybrid open-access model allows individual articles to be made freely available, extending their reach to readers without a subscription.

For a peer-reviewed journal indexed in MEDLINE and Scopus, the digital presence is primarily a research infrastructure: authors, reviewers and readers interact with the journal through manuscript systems, citation databases and the publisher's platform rather than through a public magazine website. The journal's visibility in the international research community depends on its indexing, its impact metrics and the discoverability of its content on SpringerLink. The combination of a long publishing history, broad society backing, comprehensive indexing and a full digital archive positions the Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie as the central German-language publication for the science and medicine of aging.