Is Clinical Infectious Diseases a Good Journal? Impact, Scope, and Fit

CID is a clinician's journal. That is the single most important thing to understand about its editorial filter. The question editors ask is not "Is this interesting infectious disease science?" but "What should a clinician do differently after reading this paper?"

The journal publishes clinical trials, observational studies, clinical epidemiology, antimicrobial stewardship research, diagnostic evaluation studies, and treatment outcome data. It also publishes IDSA clinical practice guidelines, which are among the most cited and used infectious disease guidelines worldwide.

Papers that are primarily microbiological, focused on pathogenesis, or laboratory-centered without a near-term clinical management implication are weak fits. CID wants manuscripts where the clinical infectious disease consequence is visible from the abstract, not assembled in the last paragraph of the discussion.

Is Clinical Infectious Diseases a good journal?

Yes. Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID) is the flagship journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America with a 2024 impact factor of 8.2 and Q1 ranking in Infectious Diseases. It is the primary venue for clinical infectious disease management research.

What is CID's acceptance rate?

CID has an acceptance rate of roughly 15-20%. The journal prioritizes manuscripts that change infectious disease diagnosis, treatment, prevention, or antimicrobial stewardship practice.

What is the difference between CID and Journal of Infectious Diseases?

CID (IF 7.3) focuses on clinical infectious disease management for practitioners. Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID, IF 5.0) covers broader infectious disease research including more basic and translational work. Both are IDSA journals, but CID is the clinical flagship.

How does CID compare to Lancet Infectious Diseases?

Lancet Infectious Diseases (IF 31.0) is significantly higher impact and publishes the most practice-changing global infectious disease research. CID (IF 7.3) is more accessible and publishes a larger volume of clinical ID work. For most clinical ID researchers, CID is the realistic first target; Lancet ID is for globally significant findings.

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting Clinical Infectious Diseases, three patterns generate the most consistent desk rejections among the papers we analyze.

Clinical implication present only in the discussion, not the data. CID's editorial guidelines require that papers "advance the understanding or management of infectious diseases in humans." In our review work, the most common failure is manuscripts where the clinical management implication is assembled in the last paragraph of the discussion from data that was never designed to answer a management question. A retrospective chart review of treatment outcomes is not the same as evidence that changes prescribing. Editors identify the gap between "we observed an association" and "clinicians should do X differently" and return papers where the latter is not supported by the former. The clinical consequence must be built into the study design, not added in interpretation.

Basic science or pathogenesis framing for a clinical ID journal. A persistent failure: manuscripts about microbial mechanisms, immune pathways, or pathogen virulence factors that are submitted to CID with light clinical framing. CID's published exclusion list explicitly states that the journal does not publish "basic mechanisms in microbiology or pathogenesis" or "animal research not directly applicable to current clinical care." In our analysis, papers that characterize host-pathogen interactions without human patient management data, or that use in vitro or animal models as the primary evidence, are desk-rejected regardless of scientific quality. The paper must be about human clinical infectious disease management.

Single-center observational design for a practice-changing claim. CID editors review study design relative to the claim being made. In our review work, single-center retrospective cohort studies that claim practice-changing implications are consistently returned with feedback about generalizability. CID publishes multi-site cohorts, well-designed prospective studies, and RCTs for practice-changing claims. Single-center data that is genuinely descriptive and hypothesis-generating is better suited for Open Forum Infectious Diseases (OFID), CID's open-access companion. Authors who aim for CID with a single-site observational design should either strengthen the design or appropriately calibrate the claims.

SciRev author-reported data confirms CID's 2-4 week median to first editorial decision among submitted papers. A CID clinical scope check can assess whether your paper's clinical management framing and study design meet CID's editorial standards.

CID (Oxford Academic, IDSA) publishes practice-changing original research in infectious diseases, work that clinicians use when treating patients. The Editor-in-Chief is Paul E. Sax, Clinical Director of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital (Harvard).

CID explicitly does NOT publish: basic mechanisms in microbiology or pathogenesis, Phase 1 trials of early-stage compounds, animal research not directly applicable to current clinical care, early in vitro data on treatments, or studies focused on assays unlikely to be clinically relevant due to cost or technical barriers. This scope exclusion is stated in the official author guidelines.

In 2024, CID moved from 24 to 12 issues per year (monthly schedule). The journal remains one of the top 3 infectious disease journals alongside JID and Lancet Infectious Diseases.

A CID desk-rejection risk check scores fit against the journal's editorial bar.