New Open-Access Journal Aims to Redefine Aging Science Across the Entire Lifespan

A major new scientific publishing venture launched this week with a bold ambition: to transform how researchers think about aging itself. PLOS Aging and Health, an open-access journal unveiled on July 21, 2026, debuts with an editorial manifesto from its two co-editors-in-chief, Sara Hägg of Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and Jennifer A. Schrack of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, arguing that the study of aging can no longer be confined to the final decades of life. Their central claim is deceptively simple but potentially disruptive for the field: aging is a lifelong process, and the diseases and disabilities that surface in old age often begin their silent development years, sometimes decades, before the first symptom appears.

The timing of the launch is no accident. The demographic arithmetic underlying the editorial is stark. According to figures cited from the World Health Organization, by 2030 one in six people worldwide will be aged over 60. That proportion represents an unprecedented shift in the structure of human populations, driven by rising life expectancy and falling birth rates across nearly every region of the globe. For the editors, this transition is not merely a statistical curiosity but a demand on science itself: societies will need a far deeper understanding of the aging process in order to sustain and care for their older members, both in the near term and for generations to come.

What makes the new journal’s framing technically interesting is its insistence on widening the definition of the field. Aging research has traditionally been aligned with geriatrics, the clinical care of older adults, and gerontology, the broader scientific study of aging. But the editors argue that these boundaries are too narrow. Many late-life conditions, from cardiovascular disease to cognitive decline, emerge from a combination of genetic predispositions, lifestyle factors, and environmental exposures accumulated across the entire life course. To truly advance the science, they write, researchers must broaden their scope from asking what constitutes aging to asking what does not constitute aging, a reframing that effectively invites contributions from disciplines that have rarely considered themselves part of the aging enterprise.

That invitation is reflected in the journal’s deliberately broad scope. The editors welcome work from demography, the social sciences, policy research, experimental laboratory studies, epidemiology, and clinical investigations. A paper might focus on adolescent health, health economics, or experimental models in cells or animals, and still fall within the journal’s remit, provided that aging runs as a common thread through the work and that the translational implications for human populations are made explicit. The emphasis is on human-centered studies, a criterion that distinguishes the journal from more basic-science-oriented outlets in the longevity and biogerontology space.

Underlying the editorial is a conceptual challenge that has long troubled the field: what does it actually mean to age well? The editors are explicit that aging well is more than the absence of frailty and disease. Independence, social engagement, and the ability to pursue what matters most to individuals rank among the top priorities reported by older adults themselves, as reflected in guidance from the US National Institute on Aging. This suggests that traditional assessments centered on physical function and cognitive test scores capture only part of the picture. Research, the editors contend, must move toward a more comprehensive understanding of aging that spans biological, psychological, and societal dimensions, measuring not just how long people live or how free they are of diagnosis, but how well they live.

This reframing has practical consequences for how aging studies are designed and evaluated. If the outcome measures of a study stop at mortality, hospitalization, or cognitive scores, they may miss the factors that older adults themselves value most, such as the capacity to live independently, maintain social ties, and pursue meaningful activities. A journal that explicitly asks authors to situate their findings in a broad context and a translational perspective is, in effect, pushing the field toward outcome measures and study designs that integrate these dimensions. It also creates space for methodological traditions, such as qualitative social science and health policy analysis, that are often sidelined in clinically dominated aging journals.

The launch also arrives at a moment of rapid growth, and growing pains, for aging research. Large-scale biobanks, longitudinal cohort studies, and wearable-sensor datasets have made it possible to track biological and functional aging markers across thousands of individuals over decades. With that data abundance, the editors note, comes risk: analyses of large datasets can produce findings that are statistically impressive but methodologically fragile. Their response is a commitment to rigorous peer review and strict methodological standards, with only papers of the highest scientific integrity considered for publication. Transparency and open-science policies, areas in which PLOS has been a leading publisher, are presented as part of the quality-control apparatus rather than as an afterthought.

The open-access model is central to that vision. All articles in the journal are published under a Creative Commons Attribution license, permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided the original authors and source are credited. For a field that depends on the integration of findings across disciplines, from molecular biologists to health economists, unrestricted access to the primary literature is more than an ideological stance; it is infrastructure. The editors describe their ambition as building a shared community in which researchers interested in aging feel connected through open science, contributing not only original research articles but also opinion pieces, editorials, and topical reviews that can help set agendas across disciplinary lines.

There is also an institutional argument embedded in the launch. The editors observe that the aging research community deserves strong publishing alternatives with a clearly defined focus, comparable to the dedicated journals that exist in other medical fields. Cardiology, oncology, and endocrinology each have mature journal ecosystems that consolidate their communities, set standards, and give early-career researchers visible venues. Aging, despite its cross-cutting relevance to nearly every organ system and every medical specialty, has lacked an equivalent focal point at scale. The editors hope the journal will create what they call a ripple effect, enhancing recognition of aging as a true medical discipline in its own right through innovation and editorial excellence.

Whether the new journal can deliver on that ambition will depend on the research it attracts and the standards it enforces, but its founding premise is already a statement about the future of the field. If aging is a process that begins at birth and unfolds across the lifespan, then the science of aging belongs not in a narrow clinical silo but at the intersection of biology, medicine, demography, and social policy. With one in six people worldwide set to be over 60 by the end of this decade, the stakes of getting that science right, and of publishing it rigorously and openly, could hardly be higher. The inaugural edition of PLOS Aging and Health is, in that sense, less a launch announcement than a challenge to the research community: stop treating aging as a specialty, and start treating it as the integrative science of the human life course.

Subject of Research: Launch of an integrative, lifespan-spanning journal for aging and health research

Article Title: PLOS Aging and Health : Integrative science of aging across the lifespan

Article References: Hägg, S., & Schrack, J. A. (2026). PLOS Aging and Health: Integrative science of aging across the lifespan. PLOS Aging and Health, 1(1), e0000023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.page.0000023

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1371/journal.page.0000023

Keywords: aging, PLOS Aging and Health, gerontology, geriatrics, lifespan research, healthy aging, epidemiology, open access, demography, public health, peer review, life course