The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report series is prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Often called “the voice of CDC,” it is the CDC’s main channel for publishing scientific public health information and recommendations that the agency describes as timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful. Readers are mainly doctors, nurses, people who practice public health, epidemiologists together with other scientists, researchers, educators, and laboratorians.
What the series is
The full name is the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, shortened to MMWR. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, prepares the series. The agency describes it as the primary vehicle for scientific publication of public health information and recommendations.
The CDC lists four publications in the series. They are MMWR Weekly, MMWR Recommendations and Reports, MMWR Surveillance Summaries, and MMWR Supplements. Each publication is identified separately.
Who reads the series
According to the CDC, the audience is made up mostly of doctors, nurses, people who practice public health, epidemiologists together with other scientists, researchers, educators, and laboratorians. The agency reports more than 118,901 electronic subscribers. On a page last reviewed July 30, 2026, the CDC also reports that the journal site receives more than 14 million page views, citing CDC Web Statistics.
How each publication is identified
The MMWR series of publications is identifiable by ISSN numbers, according to the CDC. The agency lists both an ISSN and an eISSN for each publication. It states that the eISSN is the electronic version of the publication.
For MMWR Weekly, the ISSN is 0149-2195 and the eISSN is 1545-861X. For MMWR Recommendations and Reports, the ISSN is 1057-5987 and the eISSN is 1545-8601. For MMWR Surveillance Summaries, the ISSN is 1546-0738 and the eISSN is 1545-8636. For MMWR Supplements, the ISSN is 2380-8950 and the eISSN is 2380-8942.
How the material may be used
The CDC says every item in the MMWR Series belongs to the public domain, so it can be reused and reprinted, and no special permit is required. The agency still asks that the source be cited. Readers with questions or comments about the series can email mmwrq@cdc.gov.
Comments can also be mailed to MMWR Series, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, N.E., Mailstop V25-5, Atlanta, GA 30329-4027.
How indexes rank the series
Journal Citation Reports, 2026, lists 2025 journal impact factors for three parts of the series, according to the CDC. Surveillance Summaries is listed at 96.9 and ranked first. Recommendations and Reports is listed at 51.3 and ranked second, and Weekly is listed at 16.2 and ranked seventh. Those ranks are out of 443 journals in Public, Environmental & Occupational Health.
The CDC also lists 2025 Scimago Journal Rank figures. Recommendations and Reports is 27.9 and ranked sixth. Surveillance Summaries is 14.7 and ranked 44th. Supplements is 6.8 and ranked 168th, and Weekly is 8.3 and ranked 119th. The CDC says all of those ranks are out of 32,193 journals.
For MMWR Weekly, Google Scholar figures for 2025 list an h5-index of 193 and an h5-median of 326. The CDC reports that Weekly ranked 54th of the top 100 publications overall. It ranked 17th of the top 20 publications in Health & Medical Sciences and first of the top 20 publications in Epidemiology.
