JAMA
peer-reviewed medical journal
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of biomedicine. The journal was established in 1883 with Nathan Smith Davis as the founding editor. Its publisher describes it as the most widely circulated general medical journal in the world, with more than 101,000 print recipients, more than 2.9 million recipients of electronic tables of contents and alerts, and over 29 million annual website visits. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco, became the journal editor-in-chief on July 1, 2022, succeeding Howard Bauchner of Boston University.
According to Journal Citation Reports, the journal's 2025 impact factor is 65.4, ranking it 4th out of 336 journals in the category "Medicine, General & Internal". JAMA Network reports that the journal accepts 10% of more than 11,500 annual submissions and 4% of more than 5,400 research manuscripts.
History
The journal was established in 1883 by the American Medical Association and superseded the Transactions of the American Medical Association. In the late nineteenth century, medical journals closely resembled other kinds of journalism, and publishing in the journal was understood as a privilege of AMA membership. Prior to the 1920s, the editor's main concern was with filling the journal, but between the 1910s and the mid-1920s JAMA entered the "turndown era," when submission volume was high enough to start rejecting submissions based on quality.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “JAMA” is peer-reviewed medical journal. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through JAMA, peer-reviewed and medical, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “peer-reviewed medical journal” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1470970. VIAF identifies the subject as 303535124. The Library of Congress control number is n2013182200. 5 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 5 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 2022 and 2025.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “JAMA”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow JAMA primary sources, JAMA archive and JAMA research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “JAMA”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “JAMA” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.