Tracking, Treatment, and Trust: Evolving Follow-Up Practices in Newborn Screening

Dear Colleagues,

Newborn screening has long been recognized as one of public health’s most effective population-based prevention programs, yet its impact depends on far more than the initial laboratory result. The period after screening, where families are contacted, diagnostic evaluations are completed, treatment is initiated and long-term care is coordinated, remains a complex and rapidly evolving domain. As newborn screening programs have expanded substantially in scope and complexity, the post-screening period has become a critical determinant of program effectiveness. Despite its centrality, follow-up remains one of the least standardized components of the newborn screening system. Programs vary widely in communication workflows, timeliness benchmarks, data architecture and the degree of integration between public health agencies, clinical specialists and primary care. These structural differences have implications for equity, care coordination and the reliability of population-level outcome monitoring.

This Special Issue, Tracking, Treatment, and Trust: Evolving Follow-Up Practices in Newborn Screening, aims to advance the evidence base for post screening operations. Submissions will address methodological, operational and policy dimensions of follow-up, including: models for short  and long-term follow-up; strategies to improve timeliness and reduce loss to follow-up; informatics and interoperability solutions; quality assurance and performance measurement; family engagement and communication science; emerging frameworks that link public health surveillance with clinical outcomes research. By synthesizing empirical findings and implementation experiences, this Special Issue seeks to clarify best practices and support the development of more coordinated, transparent and resilient follow-up systems across diverse newborn screening contexts.

Amy Gaviglio
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Neonatal Screening is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• newborn screening
• public health
• post-screening
• short‑ and long-term follow-up