AIDS is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 that is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins is an academic and professional medical publisher owned by Wolters Kluwer group. It publishes textbooks, various electronic media, and over 275 journals and newsletters in the health-care field. Publications are aimed at physicians, nurses, clinicians, and students...

 (London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

). It was established in 1987 and is the official journal of the International AIDS Society

International AIDS Society

The International AIDS Society is an independent association of HIV professionals, with 14,000 members from 190 countries working at all levels of the global response to AIDS. IAS members include researchers from all disciplines, clinicians, public health and community practitioners on the...

. It covers all aspects of HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

 and AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

, including basic science, clinical trial

Clinical trial

Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...

s, epidemiology

Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...

, and social science. The editor in chief

Editor in chief

An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...

 is Jay A. Levy. Eighteen issues are published annually.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in Chemical Abstracts Service

Chemical Abstracts Service

Chemical Abstracts is a periodical index that provides summaries and indexes of disclosures in recently published scientific documents. Approximately 8,000 journals, technical reports, dissertations, conference proceedings, and new books, in any of 50 languages, are monitored yearly, as are patent...

, EMBASE

EMBASE

Embase is an online information source of published literature designed to supportinformation managers and pharmacovigilance in complying with the regulatoryrequirements of a licensed drug. Through its unique and comprehensive content coverage,...

, Index Medicus

Index medicus

Index Medicus is a comprehensive index of medical scientific journal articles, published since 1879. It was initiated by John Shaw Billings, head of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, United States Army...

, Medline

MEDLINE

MEDLINE is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and health care...

, and the Science Citation Index

Science Citation Index

The Science Citation Index is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information and created by Eugene Garfield in 1960, which is now owned by Thomson Reuters. The larger version covers more than 6,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines, from ...

. The journal had a 2007 impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

of 5.46, making it the most highly cited journal in the HIV/AIDS area; it was ranked second of 27 journals in the "Virology" category, fifth of 51 journals in the "Infectious Diseases" category, and 17th of 121 in the category "Immunology".