Integrated Strategies for Malaria Elimination: A Public Health Paradigm for Endemic Disease Control

Malaria remains one of the world’s most persistent and deadly infectious diseases, particularly affecting tropical and low-resource regions. Despite substantial progress in recent decades, the path toward global elimination still faces critical challenges including emerging resistance, diagnostic gaps, and unequal access to effective treatment and prevention. However, the scientific and public health advancements made in tackling malaria offer valuable insights into how integrated approaches can be applied to other endemic diseases.

This Research Topic aims to bring together cutting-edge research and interdisciplinary perspectives that address the complexity of malaria elimination. We welcome original research, systematic reviews, and policy analyses (among other contribution types) that address innovations and implementation strategies across scales, from community-level efforts to national and international public health interventions; and throughout all areas of malaria management, from monitoring to prevention and control to treatment and long-term elimination of the disease. By focusing on malaria as a model, this collection seeks to inspire broader discussions on how disease-specific programs can inform comprehensive public health strategies in endemic disease control and elimination.

We are particularly interested in studies addressing:

1. Mathematical modeling of transmission dynamics, vaccine efficacy, and cure rates
2. Inequities in access to care, including among vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations
3. Vector control innovations and environmental interventions
4. Analysis of resistance patterns in both parasite and vector populations
5. Policy and implementation studies, especially those evaluating the expansion of access and outreach to hard-to-reach populations
6. Cross-cutting strategies integrating elimination goals into broader health system strengthening.

Through this collection, we aim to highlight how malaria elimination can serve as a model for designing, testing, and scaling interventions that are effective, equitable, and sustainable. Contributions that reflect cross-sectoral collaboration and translational impact are particularly encouraged.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Malaria elimination, Vector control, Transmission modeling, Drug resistance, Malaria policy implementation, Vulnerable populations, Resistant malaria, Malaria health equity, Endemic disease control

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.