The Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies (JAMS) is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed, open access journal. JAMS published 28 articles in 2019 in online and print versions and all the articles published in JAMS are available free from the journal website and PubMed. In 2020, JAMS made the following changes to the editorial policies to better serve the contributors and readers.

Refining the scopes: The JAMS editors restated the journal scopes to better meet the aim of journal, which are to disseminate evidence-based scientific findings on the acupuncture and meridian to researchers and clinicians in the field of complementary and alternative medicine and in the other health-related fields. The journal will publish high-quality studies on the anatomy and physiology of acupoints and meridians, and mechanism of action of acupuncture treatment, and clinical application of acupuncture. The journal welcomes the original articles on the acupuncture and related approaches (acupressure, electroacupuncture, laser acupuncture, moxibustion and cupping, etc.), pharmacopuncture and veterinary acupuncture.

Introducing a new article category: JAMS editors decided to add the following two article category, Perspective Articles and Guidelines and Recommendations. Perspective Articles present novel views and insights on topics of current interest in basic and clinical acupuncture and meridian research. Examples of potential manuscripts for publication as a perspective are a summary update of a discussion of controversial issues, clinical perspectives on the diagnosis or treatment of a particular disease, or a series of presentations at a scientific meeting. The total words of a perspective article should be 1500 or less excluding Abstract, References, and Figure/Table Legends. Guidelines and Recommendations are articles presenting consensual or official statements of various organizations of basic and clinical acupuncture and meridian research. The article should be presented in accordance with a structured and transparent process, such as that for the GRADE guidelines (https://www.gradeworkinggroup.org). These articles are normally solicited by the editors, but an unsolicited submission will be considered. The manuscript will undergo the same peer-review process as that for research articles. An unstructured single paragraph of fewer than 150 words is required.

Adopting structured abstract: To better help readers comprehend the contents of the Abstract, we decided to change the Abstract format from “unstructured” to “structured” in the original articles. The five required sections of the structured abstract are Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.

Introducing reporting guidelines: We recommend that authors make use of reporting guidelines that are appropriate to the type of the manuscript in preparation, and to indicate the reporting guideline(s) used in the Methods section of the submitted manuscript. Reporting guidelines are available through the EQUATOR (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research) Network (http://www.equator-network.org) or other websites. Compliance with the appropriate reporting guidelines will be enforced through editorial and peer review. Representative reporting guidelines include:

• CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials)-for clinical trials (http://www.consort-statement.org/)

• STRICTA (STandards for Reporting Interventions in Clinical Trials of Acupuncture)-for clinical acupuncture trials (https://www.stricta.info/)

• STARD (Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies)-for diagnostic test evaluation

• STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology)-for cross-sectional, case-control, and cohort studies

• PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses)-for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (http://www.prisma-statement.org/)

• ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments)-for all studies involving laboratory animals (https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines)

• SPQR (Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research)-for all studies involving qualitative research

• CARE (Case Report Guidelines)-for clinical case reports (http://www.care-statement.org)

• GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation)-for using to assess evidence or develop recommendations (https://www.gradeworkinggroup.org) and statistical methods.

Recommendations on the statistical analysis: For manuscripts that report statistics, we newly provide the recommendations on the statistical analysis and its presentation in Methods, Results, and Discussion sections.

These abovementioned changes are parts of our continuing efforts to improve the quality of service to the contributors to and the audience of JAMS, and we will keep working to meet the high expectations of readers of the journal.