--- name: american-journal-of-respiratory-and-critical-care-medicine description: Use when targeting the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine or deciding whether a respiratory, critical-care, or sleep study fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit across clinical-translational-basic science, the mechanistic and evidence bar, reporting-guideline and registration requirements, ATS house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. Venue-fit aid only, not clinical advice. --- # American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (american-journal-of-respiratory-and-critical-care-medicine) ## Journal positioning The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM, the American Thoracic Society "Blue Journal") is the ATS flagship, publishing high-impact research across the full respiratory–critical-care–sleep spectrum and across the full evidence spectrum: definitive clinical trials and cohorts, translational mechanism, and basic pulmonary, vascular, and immunologic science. Its defining expectation is a **conceptually important advance in lung biology, respiratory/critical-illness disease mechanism, or pulmonary/sleep clinical care** — not an incremental single-center series or a descriptive cohort with no mechanistic or practice-changing yield. Because it spans bench to bedside, AJRCCM tolerates basic and translational work that a purely clinical respiratory journal would not. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** aid; it is not clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace the journal's current instructions for authors. Before submitting, re-check the live AJRCCM author instructions. ## When to trigger - The author names AJRCCM or the "Blue Journal" for a respiratory, pulmonary-vascular, critical-care, or sleep-medicine study and wants a fit/framing check. - A clinical, translational, or basic-science lung study must be re-framed around a mechanism or a practice-changing pulmonary/critical-illness question. - The author is choosing between AJRCCM, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine (clinical/trial high-impact), and Critical Care Medicine (ICU-focused). - The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and basic/animal-study expectations spanning bench-to-bedside work. ## Scope & topic fit - Adult and pediatric pulmonary disease: asthma, COPD, ILD/pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, infection, and pulmonary vascular disease (PAH). - Critical-care and acute respiratory illness: ARDS, mechanical ventilation, acute lung injury — with mechanistic or outcome rigor. - Sleep and circadian medicine: sleep-disordered breathing and its physiologic or outcome consequences. - Translational and basic lung science: lung development, immunology, epithelial and endothelial biology, and animal/cell models that illuminate human disease. - Clinical trials, large cohorts, and biomarker studies with respiratory or critical-illness endpoints. - Pulmonary physiology, imaging, and -omics studies that establish a disease mechanism or a new biological insight. ## Method & evidence bar - Clinical studies must be adequately powered with prespecified, patient-centered endpoints; trials require prospective registration and the registration number. - The applicable reporting guideline and checklist are expected: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational work, PRISMA for systematic reviews, ARRIVE for animal studies. - Translational/basic work must show rigorous controls, biological replication, blinded and randomized animal experiments where applicable, and reagent/model validation. - Mechanistic claims need direct causal evidence (perturbation, not correlation alone); human relevance should be anchored to patient samples or validated models. - Effect estimates need confidence intervals and absolute as well as relative measures; causal language must match the design and the species/model studied. - Sample-size, replication, and statistical-analysis plans must be explicit for both clinical and laboratory studies. ## Structure & house style - ATS format with a structured abstract and an "At a Glance Commentary" / scientific knowledge statement; re-check current article types (Original Article, Concise Clinical Study, etc.) and limits on the live guide. - The introduction frames the biological or clinical gap; the discussion states the mechanistic insight or practice implication plainly and bounds overreach. - A CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected for the relevant clinical design; animal studies report ARRIVE-aligned design detail. - Figures must show representative data with statistics, N, and replication; an online supplement carries full methods, the protocol/SAP, and additional experiments. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the ICMJE/EQUATOR and ATS anchors, then cite the current AJRCCM page you checked. - Search the live site for "AJRCCM American Thoracic Society instructions for authors" and follow the current version. - Re-check article types, abstract and At-a-Glance format, and word/figure/reference limits. - Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE), data/code-availability, and protocol/SAP submission. - Re-check IRB/ethics and consent, animal-care/IACUC approval for laboratory work, ICMJE authorship and conflict-of-interest disclosure, funding, and AI-use disclosure. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The study delivers a clear mechanistic insight or practice-changing respiratory/critical-illness finding. - [ ] Clinical endpoints are prespecified and powered; trials are registered with the number in the manuscript. - [ ] The correct reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA/ARRIVE) is completed and attached. - [ ] Basic/translational work shows controls, biological replication, and model validation. - [ ] Mechanistic claims rest on perturbation evidence and are anchored to human relevance. - [ ] IRB/consent, IACUC (if animal), ICMJE disclosures, and a data-availability statement are prepared. ## Common desk-reject triggers - Single-center descriptive series or registry slice with no mechanism and no practice change. - Association-only biomarker or -omics studies with no validation cohort or functional follow-up. - Animal/cell work without disease relevance, replication, or ARRIVE-aligned rigor. - Missing trial registration, protocol, or the required reporting checklist. - Narrow ICU-management question better served by an intensive-care journal, or a purely clinical trial with limited mechanistic depth. ## Re-routing decision - High-impact respiratory clinical trial without a mechanistic core → `the-lancet-respiratory-medicine`. - ICU-management / organ-support focus over pulmonary biology → `critical-care-medicine`. - Perioperative respiratory or sedation/ventilation in surgery → `anesthesiology` / `jama-surgery`. - Broad practice-changing significance beyond pulmonology → general medicine (`jama` / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle). - Pure basic immunology/cell biology with no lung-disease anchor → a basic-science venue in the natural-science bundle. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (ATS Blue Journal) [Specialty tags] [Study design / reporting guideline] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```