Public Health Reviews Manuscript Guidelines

  

Objectives

 

The objective of the new PHR is to provide information to support cutting edge public health practice, teaching and research using systematic review papers. This approach is in keeping with its title and establishes a niche not in direct competition with existing journals in the field of Public Health. The scope of the journal will place emphasis on the integration of current state of the art knowledge and translational issues, interdisciplinary approaches, diffusion of innovations, emerging public health issues and best practices for the benefit of a wide audience including SPH faculty and students, public health professionals, and policy makers. The new PHR will strive to include "agenda setting" material for decision makers, practitioners, researchers and others seeking to advance the field of public health in Europe and globally. Our goal is to build on and synthesize current evidence in the field of Public Health, and set agendas based on this for public health leadership in the future. Submitted manuscripts should be descriptive, analytic and prescriptive.

 

PHR is publicly funded and provides unrestricted free online access. There will be a fee for paper subscriptions in order to defray printing costs.

 

Reviewing

 

All papers including invited papers will undergo thorough peer review prior to acceptance and publication. We anticipate an acceptance rate similar to other high-quality journals in the field.

 

Papers will be reviewed by two outside reviewers for appropriate scientific perspective and by two PHR editorial board members to ensure their fit with the theme of the issue in which the article is to be published. The Editor in Chief will be responsible for final acceptance or rejection of an article.

 

Peer reviews will be completed in 3 weeks and 2 weeks will be allowed for revisions.

 

Disclosure

 

At the time of manuscript submission please disclose any financial or competing interest you may have, or of any member of your authorship team, that might be affected by the contents or conclusions of your paper. All authors will be asked to complete and sign a disclosure statement. We will disclose any potential conflict of interest to our readers.

 

Instructions for Submission

 

Meet your manuscript due date.

 

Limit review to assigned length.

 

Provide electronic files of manuscript, figures, and tables via online submission or on disk. Indicate word-processing program used. Indicate contents on disk.

 

Double space all lines, including Literature Cited, tables, and figure legends.

 

Equations and formulas-include short formulas that can be typeset in a straight line in the text. Set out (display) long, complex formulas. Number key displayed equations.

 

Include a PDF file for the final submission, including all figures and tables; this is especially important for reviews containing graphic chemical and mathematical formulas.

 

Please mark up by hand the final copyeditied manuscript, Do not use a word processing application to make final corrections to the manuscript.

 

Manuscript Checklist

 

Include the following with your submission:

 

• Title page

• Table of contents

• Abstract

• Key words

• Running title

• Future issues list

• Key terms/Definitions list,

• List of important abbreviations and acronyms

• Literature cited

• Annotated references

• Related resources

• Section headings

• Figures - black & white

• Tables

• Key words and Abstract

• Summary points list

 

Manuscript Preparation

 

Proofreading

 

Please proofread carefully for both errors and inconsistencies in the following: spelling (especially of scientific terminology, proper names, and foreign words), mathematical notation, numerical values in tables and text, and accuracy of quotations. Be sure that all references, tables, and figures are cited in the text.

 

Estimating the Length of the Manuscript

 

Every Review volume has an assigned length. Likewise, each article has a length assigned by the editors - up to 24 typed double spaced pages in Microsoft Word® Times-New-Roman font (12point), paginated. Please keep to this length, which includes any figures and tables submit­ted.

 

Printing The Manuscript

 

All material must be printed double spaced using 12-point type, which is approximately 10 characters per inch. Please do not use small (less than 12 point) type or space-and-a-half line spacing. These manipulations do not make your review shorter, only harder to read.

 

Number all pages consecutively and arrange in this order: title page, text, literature cited, article components, figure legends, tables, and figures. Place the title page on a separate sheet and include:

a. title of article

b. author(s) name(s), affiliation(s), and email address(es)

c. shortened running title (35 characters max)

d. corresponding author contact information

 

Sending the Manuscript

 

Public Health Reviews content is copyedited on the computer. Electronic files of the manuscript, including figures and tables, must be submitted as an electronic document via online submission using readable versions of word processing software. Microsoft Word is preferred.

 

A PDF of the final submitted version, including all figures and tables, must accompany all electronic submissions. URL and login information for online submission is sent to authors two months before the manuscript due date. FTP upload or submission of a disk are also options.

 

Online and Print Publication

 

After approval, the typeset page proof of your article, lacking any final corrections, will be published online ahead of print as a Review in Advance. About one month before print publication, the final full text will become available online.

 

Editorial Remarks

 

Process

 

Following its arrival at Public Health Reviews, and its acceptance by an editor of the series, the manuscript is processed, copyedited, and sent to a technical editor for scientific editing.

 

A copy of the edited manuscript is then sent to the author for final checking and response to any questions posed by the editors. This occurs usually within two to three months after the date of submission. The author has five days in which to correct and return the copy. Manuscripts should not be extensively revised or rewritten at this stage. When reviewing the copyedited manuscript, do not word process again. Revisions must be sent within 48 hours of receipt via scanned electronic version or by overnight courier preferably FEDEX to Presses de l'EHESP.

 

Confirmation, typeset page proofs are sent electronically to the author approximately one month after the author returns the corrected manuscript. With the author's permission, these typeset page proofs, lacking any final corrections, may be published online ahead of print. Final corrections will be made to files before final online/print publication. Only printer's errors can be corrected and references updated at this stage.

 

Style Guidelines

 

For detailed stylistic guidelines, refer to Webster's Dictionary, Words Into Type (Prentice-Hall), The Chicago Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press), and Council of Science Editors' Style Manual (American Institute of Biological Sciences).

 

Citation and Quotation Guidelines

 

The preparation of a review must, by its very nature, rely heavily on the ideas, observations, and reports of others. Therefore, it is important for authors to exercise care in citing and quoting other publications. This precaution applies also to the use of the author's own previous writing. The following guidelines are intended primarily to protect new Annual Reviews authors from inadvertent infringements of copyright, any appearance of plagiarism, or accidental bias in assembling bibliographies.

 

When describing the findings or theories of others, always cite their sources in close proximity to your specific discussion of them. Omnibus citations at the beginning of an article are sometimes appropriate but they should not be used as substitutes for explicit citations at the end of the relevant sentences or paragraphs of text.

 

The original sources of novel technical terminology, or uniquely apposite words or phrases recently introduced into the literature, should be cited, unless these terms already have become established in the common vocabulary of the field.

 

If you wish to use a sentence, or essential part thereof, from another article, always set it off in quotation marks and cite its source. However, one should keep the number of direct quotations to a minimum.

 

If you choose to quote several consecutive sentences from another source, set off this material as an extract. Omit quotation marks and indent from both left and right margins; below the quote, indicate the author's name, the title of the work, and the reference.

 

If you need to quote, paraphrase, or abridge more than approximately 250 words from a single source (whether consecutively or in scattered quotations), please ensure that appropriate permission has been obtained from the copyright holder even when quoting from your own work, if someone else holds the copy­right. In such cases we also urge you to discuss your intentions, whenever possible, with the primary author.

 

Authors must obtain permission to use any diagrams, illustrations, or tables from other publications. Also, if this material has been redrawn or revised, please indicate this with a parenthetical note in the figure caption or in a footnote to the table.

 

Authors should strive to be fair, yet discriminating, in their selection of references. Include only those papers you consider to be genuinely important: Do not clutter the bibliography with citations of marginal relevance to your topic merely for the sake of "completeness." On the other hand, do not be so sparing with your references that you might appear to have minimized or disregarded the work of your competitors or newcomers to the field. The preparation of an appropriate bibliography is a difficult and ultimately subjective task. Nonetheless it is important for authors to be sensitive to the pitfalls of either too many or too few citations in review articles.

 

If you have any questions about these guidelines, do not hesitate to contact your Production Editor or the Editor-in-Chief of Public Health Reviews.

 

Extra vigilance is required of literature review authors, for whom the task of materials-assembly (today often a software cut-and-paste operation) must be separated carefully from those of information synthesis and fresh expression.

 

References

 

Authors should adhere to a general guideline of approximately 50 references per article. All references should be formatted according to Vancouver Style i.e. as in the American Journal of Public Health.

 

Footnotes

 

We discourage the use of footnotes in text as these tend to interrupt the flow of the text.

 

Designate footnotes to tables by superscript lower-case letters; begin lettering anew for each table. Double or triple space footnotes at the foot of the table.

 

Include brief citations of unpublished observations and personal communications in parentheses in the text, not as footnotes (nor as references in Literature Cited section); use initials with surnames (e.g., R.L. Smith, unpublished data).

 

Italics

 

Indicate italics in typescript or printout using italic print. Public Health Reviews discourages the use of underlining, however If you wish something to be printed with an underline, please indicate this on the pdf copy.

 

Use italics for:

a. Scientific names of bacteria and protozoa

b. Genera, species, and subspecific taxa

c. In chemical names, p, o, m, n, cis, sec, sic, trans, syn

d. Genes, genotypes, loci, markers, mutants, alleles, operons

e. Mathematical variables

 

Do NOT use italics for:

a. Emphasis

b. Common foreign words such as ad hoc, a priori, in vivo, in vitro

c. Abbreviations such as sp. spp., var.

d. Names of taxa of rank higher than genus

e. Generic names used as adjectives

f. Names of microorganisms used colloquially (e.g., actinomycetes)

g. Strain designations

h. Names of cells, phages, hosts, phenotypes

i. R, X, M, B, A, etc. in formulas and equations where they represent chemical elements or groups

 

Article Components

 

To help readers better find and understand what they seek, we ask authors to provide the following:

 

• Key Words (as many as 6 may be included) based on MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html

• Abstract (up to 250 words) is required

• Running short title

• Key words

• Terms/Definitions list: define major terms used in text (as many as 10)

• Acronyms list: spell out most important acronyms used in text (up to 10)

• Summary Points list: highlight the central points of your review (as many as 8)

• Future Issues list: note where research may be headed (as many as 8)

 

Authors may also provide any of the following additional components:

 

• Annotated References: explain the special importance of selected references from bibliography (as many as 10)

• Side Bar: highlight a related topic (200 words, max)

• Related Resources: references to material (other published reviews/articles, online material) not already part of Literature Cited that may be of interest to readers (as many as 6)

 

Lettering and Symbols

 

Lettering in figures must be of professional quality and large enough to be legible. Specify type at 11 pt. Use Helvetica, Univers or Arial font. If you plan on submitting scaled images that contain type, be certain that type is still legible (no smaller than 8 pt) and consistent in size for all the figures in your chapter. Avoid using discrepant or very large type sizes in the same figure or set of figures.

 

Figure Legends

 

Every figure must have an accompanying descriptive legend. Submit figure legends as a separate text file, double spaced. Please do not attach legends to hard copy figures or write them on the figures themselves.

 

Figures and Tables

 

Public Health Reviews strongly encourages the use of illustrative figures and incisive tables. Article page allotments include space used for figures and tables. Thus information presented in graphic materials should be referenced, but not repeated, within the text.

 

Figures and tables you submit with your article will appear both in print and online. With your help and some careful planning, we can use the figures you submit for both purposes. Instructions in this section cover issues of content and letter­ing and other important considerations for legibility and presentation in your article.

 

Figures

 

Figures should be well-designed drawings or well-chosen photographs that illustrate key points in your article or that present relevant data in an economical way. All materials should be submitted in final form.

 

To maximize usability of your figures, all figures must be submitted in digital form. You must also include a PDF file of all figures submitted.

 

Figures should be in Black and White, not color or grayscale for printing purposes. See "Supplemental Materials" section if you wish to submit color figures or photographs.

 

Figure Sizing

 

Note: page size and layout is still under construction.

 

The maximum space allocated on an Public Health Reviews page for figures is ?" wide x ?" deep (approximately ? cm x ? cm). Scale the figures you send us to fit those dimen­sions. (Note that photographs usually do not benefit from reduction in size.) Avoid, if possible, illustrations oriented broadside (or landscape) on the page. With your approval, figures may be resized by the Editor.

 

Numbering and Naming Figures

 

Number your figures consecutively as they appear in your article, and as they are referenced in the text. When preparing your text files, spell out the word "Figure" in legends and text. Refer to parts of figures as (left), (right), (top), (middle), and (bottom). Composite figures (those with multiple panels) should be labeled with lower-case letters, referring, for example, to parts (a), (b), and (c). The title should be self explanatory to the reader looking at the table without reading the text.

 

Permissions

 

You are responsible for obtaining permission to use any copyrighted material and for paying any incidental fees. The source of the material should be credited at the end of the figure legend. The copyright holder may specify the exact language that is to be used.

 

Tables

 

Note: page size and layout is still under construction.

 

Only material requiring several columns and several entries should be submitted in tabular form. (Incorporate other material into the text.) See example below. Tables should fit within an Annual Reviews page width (?"; approximately ? cm). Submit electronic files for all tables. Complex tables must be rendered as images in the online version.

 

Type each table on a separate page and assemble all tables after the figures. Number tables consecu­tively. Mention each table by number in the text and note in the manuscript approximately where the table should appear. (Otherwise the table will be placed close to where it is first mentioned in the text.)

 

Title of Table

 

A one-line title for each table should enable the reader to understand the data without referring to the text. Include additional information in a footnote keyed to the title and designated as table footnote a, b, c, etc.

 

Boxheads

 

Provide a brief heading (boxhead) for each column; type self explanatory headings in lowercase letters, capitalizing the first word only.

 

Rules

 

Do not use vertical rules. Draw a double line between table title and boxheads, a single line between boxheads and the body of the table, and a single line at the end of the table before the footnotes.

 

Body of Table

 

Align entries under the appropri­ate boxhead or subheading. Make sure the PDF copy of your table clearly indicates the vertical alignment of boxheads and data. If subheadings are used in the stub (the lefthand column), type main stub headings flush to the left margin and underline them; indent subheadings.

 

Type longer entries in block style, leaving extra space between entries. Align numerals on the deci­mal; if numerical data are mixed, center entries in the column. Write out repeated entries; do not use ditto marks or leave a blank space. Use an em dash (-) if no information is available. If a data col­umn heading is not applicable to a particular item, leave the space blank; do not use a dash.

 

Footnotes

 

Print out double-spaced notes at the foot of the table; label each with a superscript letter (a, b, c, etc.) keyed to the title, boxhead, or entry on the table. Begin the lettering anew for each table. If a footnote applies to more than one table, key it to the title of subsequent tables.

 

Supplemental Electronic Materials Policy

 

Public Health Reviews offers an additional service to its authors. Article-relevant material that is costly, difficult, or impossible to include in the printed volume may be posted on our Web site. These materials are fully linked to the online version of your article. Candidates for inclusion in this Web repository are figures that will not reproduce well in print, tables, data sets, and multimedia objects (e.g., sound, video, animations, 3D objects, etc.).

 

Please Note: It is the author's responsibility to put Supplemental Material in a final, copyedited form before submission. In most cases we will be unable to revise these materials, either upon submission or thereafter.

 

Supplemental material must directly supplement the material presented in the primary Annual Review article. The article in turn must form a coherent whole that does not depend for comprehensibility on the online supplement. For example, an online-only (supplemental) color figure should enhance but not supplant a grayscale figure or diagram in the printed volume. An online-only dataset should flesh out but not replace explanations or conclusions in the printed article. Think of this Web-accessible material as directly supportive but not primary.