CORRESPONDENCE AND MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Manuscripts must be submitted online in a double-spaced, blinded format, with pages numbered, in at least twelve-point type. Any manuscript without page numbers will not be considered and will be returned immediately to the author. Once the manuscript has been prepared according to the information below, please visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aje to submit. Instructions on how to submit your manuscript online can be found by clicking here.

When uploading the manuscript to the website, please delete any text reference to the paper's authors, affiliations, and acknowledgments. Each manuscript, when submitted, must include a word count for both the abstract and the text, exclusive of references, tables, and figure legends. If the manuscript cannot be submitted online, please contact the American Journal of Epidemiology, Candler Building, 111 Market Place, Suite 840, Baltimore, MD 21202-6709, USA (telephone: 410-223-1649), for further instructions. The author who submits the manuscript will remain the contact author throughout the entire publishing process. When the final revision of the manuscript has been accepted, the senior author must sign a Publication Agreement (see "Copyright") and a statement accepting responsibility for publication charges.

AUTHORSHIP

Authorship credit should be based on criteria developed by the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or reviewing it and, if appropriate, revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions (1) and (2) and (3). In addition, each author must certify that he or she has participated sufficiently in the work to believe in its overall validity and to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of its content.

The cover letter must briefly explain each author’s individual contributions. For example, “Author A designed the study and directed its implementation, including quality assurance and control. Author B helped supervise the field activities and designed the study’s analytic strategy. Author C helped conduct the literature review and prepare the Materials and Methods and the Discussion sections of the text.”

CODE OF ETHICS

If a study has involved any contact with human subjects or if it is otherwise appropriate, authors should state in their Materials and Methods section that their institution's review board has approved the study proposal, as well as the manner in which informed consent was obtained from subjects (if applicable). Authors should follow the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (41st World Medical Assembly. Declaration of Helsinki: recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Bull Pan Am Health Organ. 1990;24:606-609).

The Journal subscribes to the criteria for authorship detailed in Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Vancouver Guidelines) by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

At the point of submission, American Journal of Epidemiology policy requires that each author reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated - including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your coauthors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

As an integral part of the online submission process, Corresponding authors are required to confirm whether they or their coauthors have any conflicts of interest to declare, and to provide details of these. If the Corresponding author is unable to confirm this information on behalf of all coauthors, the authors in question will then be required to submit a completed Conflict of Interest form to the Editorial Office. It is the Corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors adhere to this policy.

If the manuscript is published, Conflict of Interest information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.

MANUSCRIPTS

The American Journal of Epidemiology considers manuscripts for which copyright has not been assigned, that do not essentially duplicate already published material, and are not being simultaneously considered for publication elsewhere. If the submitted manuscript is based on the findings of an article in press or if such an article is cited in support of current findings, a copy of the article should be uploaded along with the submitted manuscript.

Reports of original research are published in the form of Original Contributions, comprising field and laboratory studies of infectious diseases and noninfectious acute and chronic diseases, as well as studies of statistical or methodological issues. We encourage methodological contributions aimed at improving the design and analysis of epidemiologic studies. Although we recognize that such papers may require a technical level above that of the typical original contribution published in the Journal, we encourage authors of methodological papers to make them as comprehensible as possible by using examples based on epidemiologic studies and by relegating highly technical material to appendices.

Papers dealing with the practical application of epidemiologic or statistical methods (such as the implementation of statistical techniques or the evaluation of interview strategies) are published in a section entitled Practice of Epidemiology. Papers designated as Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE) Reviews identify a gene's allelic variants and describe what is known about their frequency in different populations, identify associated diseases, and summarize the risk and risk factors. The Review and Commentary sections contain reviews and comments on various aspects of epidemiologic research. The editorial board reserves the right to select the section in which the paper will be published, if it is found to be acceptable for publication.

If a questionnaire was used in the study, the authors are encouraged to make it available on the World Wide Web.

Letters to the Editor should refer to an article(s) previously published in the Journal. A letter should convey the author's views as concisely as possible and contain a reasonable number of references. Letters to the Editor are not blinded. After it is accepted, it is usually sent to the first author of the original paper for a response; if a response is warranted, both letters will appear in the same issue. (If the response letter cannot be submitted within 3-4 weeks, we will publish the letter and the response can be published in a future issue.) The responding author(s) should reference the critique before citing any other references.

MULTIPART PAPERS

The Journal strongly discourages the submission of multipart papers. If submitted, multi-part papers should be prepared so they can be assigned to different editorial board members and independent outside expert reviewers.

REVISIONS

Revisions should be submitted online to Manuscript Central using the same "Contact Author" account as the original manuscript. At this site, authors will find a link to the current paper and instructions on how to upload the revisions. Authors are requested to upload an unblinded copy showing the changes, deletions, and/or additions. Along with these copies, responses to the editor's and reviewers' comments are also requested.

COPYRIGHT

It is a condition of publication in the American Journal of Epidemiology that authors grant an exclusive license to Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. In granting an exclusive license, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the American Journal of Epidemiology is acknowledged as the original place of publication and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance.

Once the article is accepted for publication, please fill out and return the license to publish form both by fax and mail to the address below.

American Journal of Epidemiology
Oxford Journals | Oxford University Press
2001 Evans Road, Suite 112
Cary, NC 27513 USA

Fax: +44 (0)1865 355897

Because copyright laws and policies are constantly being updated, please refer to a recent issue of the Journal for copyright procedures. In addition, questions regarding copyright and requests to reproduce published data should be directed to Oxford University Press at Journals Permissions or can be answered online at www.oxfordjournals.org/access_purchase/ .

WORD COUNT

The maximum length of an article, exclusive of tables, figures, references, and abstract, should be as follows: Original Contribution, 3,500 words; Practice of Epidemiology, 4,000 words; Review or Commentary, 4,000 words; HuGE Review, 5,000 words; Invited Commentary, 2,000 words; Letter to the Editor, 500–600 words. An abstract should not exceed 200 words. As noted above, when a manuscript is submitted, authors must provide a word count for both the abstract and the text. Editors can request that authors shorten their papers further. Lengthy, encyclopedic tables should be avoided.

TEXT FORMAT AND STYLE

Please note: This journal does not accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents at this time. Please use Word's "Save As" option to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.

Refer to a current copy of the Journal for the correct format and style. It should be used in conjunction with the AMA Manual of Style, 10th Edition, published by Oxford University Press. Use American English spelling. Follow Webster's Third New International Dictionary or Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition, for spelling and word division. Follow the Merck Index and Stedman's Medical Dictionary, 26th Edition, for spelling of chemical names and medical terms.

If you have additional questions about Journal style after reading the following instructions, please contact the Journal office, and an Editorial Project Manager will assist you.

The following 3 paragraphs apply only if the paper is accepted. For online submissions, to maintain the blinded status, supply only the title and abbreviations. When the paper has been accepted, the names of the authors and their affiliations must be inserted in the final version.

Cover page. Provide a cover page with the title and authors only (without degrees or affiliations). Author affiliations are provided as the first item in the Acknowledgments section (refer to the information below).

Footnotes page. Type an alphabetical list of all abbreviations used in the manuscript and a complete address for correspondence, using US Postal Service abbreviations for states. Provide a "running head," a short title of not more than 50 letters and spaces.

Acknowledgments section. This section should be typed after the text and before the references. Provide an ordered list of material that may be included: 1) author affiliations; 2) grants and/or financial support; 3) thank-you’s (in this part only, "Dr." should precede the name of each person with a medical and/or doctoral degree (e.g., “The authors thank Dr. John Smith for his contributions to this study.”); do not thank reviewers or study subjects); 4) members of a study group; 5) presentation at a meeting, report number in a series, or student prize paper; 6) disclaimer; and 7) conflict of interest statement.

Author affiliations should be listed in a single paragraph titled “Author affiliations:”. Give author names in the same format as in the author line on the cover page, in parentheses at the end of each affiliation. If an author is associated with more than 1 department or institution, that name should be listed after each relevant affiliation. Write out names of states, provinces, and countries (except United States, which is not included); do not use 2-letter US Postal Service abbreviations. Sample: Asia Biometrics Center, Pfizer Australia, Sydney, Australia (Ian C. Marschner); Department of Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana (Ian C. Marschner, R. John Simes, Anthony Keech); and School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Emanuela Taioli).

Abstract. Except for letters to the editor and book reviews, all submissions, including stand-alone commentaries, must include an abstract. The abstract should state concisely the research question that was asked, the methods used, the results of the research, and the answer to the research question. Because the abstract is used by abstracting services such as MEDLINE and must make sense when read alone, it should not include citations of the scientific literature or figures or tables. However, it should include the study year(s), location, and population studied, if applicable. Use the impersonal "the authors" rather than “we.”

Note: The abstract must be limited to 200 words. The Journal does not use structured abstracts. Type the abstract as 1 double-spaced paragraph.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (keywords). For all submissions, including commentaries, give a list of not more than 8 MeSH headings in alphabetical order below the abstract. MeSH headings should be selected from main headings listed in Medical Subject Headings in Index Medicus, published by the National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html). For statistical papers only, keywords may be selected from boldface entries in the Subject Index of the latest volume of Current Index to Statistics: Applications, Methods and Theory (CIS), published by the American Statistical Association (http://www.statindex.org/CIS/homepage/).

Text headings. The main headings used in Original Contributions are MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, and DISCUSSION. (These headings may not apply to statistical papers.) Place them flush left on the page in capital letters; do not underline or use bold lettering. Do not use "Introduction" as a heading.

Second-level headings are flush left with only the first letter of the first word uppercased. Do not underline.

Third-level headings are italic and begin the paragraph (with only the first letter of the first word uppercased), followed by a period.

Do not number the sections of the paper.

Abbreviations. To improve clarity and readability, the Journal strictly limits the use of abbreviations. Only those needed for long, involved terms, such as hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), will be allowed. The abbreviations CI, RR, OR, and SMR may be used only in parentheses after being defined the first time used. Abbreviations may be used in tables and figures if they are defined in the table footnotes and figure legends. Avoid excessive use of abbreviations solely to limit the word count.

At its first appearance in the abstract and text, an abbreviated term should be written out in full, with the abbreviation in parentheses immediately following. Abbreviations should also be defined in the abbreviations footnote. Contact the Journal office regarding any questions about the use of an abbreviation.

Trade names. For products used in experiments or methods (particularly those referred to by a trade name), give the manufacturer's full name and location (in parentheses). When possible, use generic names of drugs.

Use of "percent" in text. Use the % symbol in the abstract, text, tables, and figures (including legends). Use mg/100 ml rather than mg%.

Footnotes to text. Do not use footnotes to the text. Instead, incorporate such material into the text (e.g., in parentheses).

Numbers. Use Arabic numerals for all specific numbers. Insert commas in numbers with 4 or more digits.

Metric system. The Journal strongly encourages authors to use the metric system for all measurements. Where US measurements must be used, metric equivalents must be given in parentheses.

Decimal fractions. For decimal fractions less than 1.00, use a zero in the whole-number position (e.g., 0.001).

P values. Note style for probability: P < 0.01, with an uppercase italic letter P. Avoid reporting an excessive number of digits beyond the decimal for estimates, especially when the estimate has a wide confidence interval. If P values are given, they should be reported to, at most, 2 digits beyond any leading zeros. They may alternatively be reported as less than some specified value (e.g., P < 0.05 or P < 0.001). Indicate whether P values are 1 sided or 2 sided.

Means, standard deviations, and standard errors. To report means, standard deviations, and standard errors, use the following format: "mean (SD)" and "mean (SE)." Do not use "±."

Confidence intervals. In the text, all confidence intervals are expressed by using a colon and with a comma instead of a dash between values, for example, 95% confidence interval: 1.20, 1.90. In tables, place confidence intervals in a separate column without parentheses, for example, 1.20, 1.90.

Statistical notation. Equations can appear within the text or displayed. Whenever possible, mathematical equations should be written on a single line, as a/ (a + b) and exp(x). With proper use of braces, brackets, parentheses, and exponents, even complicated expressions can be put into this form. However, any mathematical expression that contains a character taller than a line of type should be displayed and numbered as an equation. When referring to an equation in the text, use "equation 6" or "expression 6."

When preparing math, use italic type for variables and single letters, bold type for vectors, and regular type for short words such as "exp" or "lim." Insert a space before and after any mathematical sign or symbol.

For multiplication, use a times sign in preference to an asterisk or centered dot. For ±, ≤, and ≥, do not use an underline. The underline may be lost during software conversion, changing the meaning of the data.

Regression analyses. When presenting results of regression analyses, regression coefficients should usually be converted into more generally meaningful terms (e.g., relative odds instead of beta coefficients). Note that, because regression coefficients are unit dependent for continuous variables and category dependent for discrete or ordinal variables, the Journal requires statements specifying the units or categories, that is, as parenthetical statements in the text or in table footnotes or figure legends.

Odds ratio vs. relative risk. When reporting results of a case-based case-control study, where the parameter of interest is an odds ratio, the authors should refer to that parameter as an "odds ratio," not as a "relative risk."

Funding information. Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
  
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies)
• Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].'

TABLE FORMAT AND STYLE

Each table must be formatted by using the table feature in Word. Tables should be numbered (Arabic numerals) in the sequence in which they are mentioned in the text. They should be concise and self-explanatory. Use a single top rule, a single rule below the headings, and a single bottom rule. Avoid using internal headings, and do not use rules within the table body. Column headings should be clearly delineated, with straddle rules over pertinent columns to indicate subcategories. Whenever possible, data in vertical columns should have the same unit of measurement. Divide overly long tables into 2 or more tables, for example, 1 table for men and 1 for women.

Table titles should give details on the place of the study, the time of the study, and the study population (if applicable). The designation “Table 1” should be typed flush left, followed by a period and the title. In the title, capitalize all main words, including prepositions of 4 or more letters. For example, “Baseline Characteristics of Infants With Initial and Follow-up Screening, London, United Kingdom, 2001–2003.” (In the text, use an uppercase beginning letter for the words "Table," "Figure," and “Appendix.”) In the table body, leave blank spaces for no entry; avoid using dashes. Order of footnotes: 1) Abbreviations: (no footnote symbol, listed alphabetically, separated by semicolons); 2) P values; 3) other footnotes as necessary, preceded by superscript lowercase letters.

Use asterisks (*, **, ***) for P values. If P values repeat in successive tables, they should be defined in the first footnote to each table in which they appear. Always list any p values before other footnotes in the table.

REQUIREMENTS FOR FIGURES

Letters, numbers, decimal points, and symbols should be large enough and sharp enough to be readable when figures are reduced and scanned. All figures will be reduced to fit either in 1 column or within the 2 column width of the Journal page. On maps, add scale (in kilometers or meters) and direction north.

When plotting relative measures of effect (e.g., relative risks, relative odds), a logarithmic scale should be used unless there is a compelling reason to use an arithmetic scale. If bars are used to plot the relative measures, they should start at the baseline level of 1.0 rather than at zero.

Figure legends should not be included on the figures themselves but should be typed after the reference list. Each legend should be a separate paragraph and should include details on the place of the study, the time of the study, and the study population (if applicable). Define all figure abbreviations in the legend.

Graphs should be professionally designed, clear, and (with the legend) self-explanatory. The type on graphs must be large enough to remain legible when reduced for printing.

Authors should submit their figures with the manuscript. Color figures are not recommended; there is a per-figure charge to print in color, but color figures can be published at no charge as Web-only material (refer to the Supplementary Data section of these Instructions). Figures with gray tones are not recommended either. For clarity, use polka dots, hatch marks, or other line art markings instead of grays to differentiate from either black or white. Black-and-white line art figures, if pixel based, should be provided in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) at a resolution of not less than 1,200 points per inch (ppi) at 100% of their height and width. Black-and-white, vector-based line art figures should be provided in JPEG format. Do not submit digitized figures in native application format.

REFERENCES

Number references consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. Reference numbers in the text are full-sized Arabic numerals in parentheses within the sentence. For 3 or more consecutive references cited all at once, use, for example, (1-4). Format other references as (4, 5, 12), with spaces between the reference numbers.

When directly quoting material in the text, give the reference number followed by the page number(s) of the quotation, for example, (24, p. 65).

Important: All statements of scientific fact should be referenced. Failure to do so may cause considerable delay in processing the manuscript and may necessitate renumbering of the references.

References to personal, written communications should be inserted in parentheses in the text rather than in the reference list. Give the person's name, institutional affiliation, "personal communication," and the year. Verbal communications are not acceptable as supporting documentation.

The reference list should be limited to published or "in press" references. No "submitted" manuscript should appear in the reference list. A manuscript submitted for publication but not yet accepted may be referenced in parentheses in the text. Give the author's name, institutional affiliation, and "unpublished manuscript." Unpublished data may also be cited in the text (e.g., communications with the paper’s coauthors). However, authors should not refer to "forthcoming" papers or promise future publication of results.

References must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents and must give the exact authors' last names, initials, and article title. Please supply the entire page range and issue number (in parentheses); see examples below. If only 1 page number is given, indicate in parentheses after the title whether the reference is a letter, an editorial, an abstract, or an electronic article. For manuscripts accepted (not submitted) but not yet published, designate the journal followed by a period and then “In press.” For references to papers presented at conferences, give the location (city and state or country), month and days, and year of the conference. For references published online in advance of print publication, provide the journal abbreviation followed by the digital object identifier (DOI) number in parentheses.

For articles originally published in a language other than English, indicate the language in parentheses after the article title provided in English.

Examples of correct forms of references follow. Type references double-spaced. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus (published by the National Library of Medicine). For more than 3 authors, list the first 3 and add "et al."

EXAMPLES OF REFERENCE STYLE

Standard journal article

Nakajima S, Saijo Y, Kato S, et al. Effects of prenatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins on mental and motor development in Japanese children at 6 months of age. Environ Health Perspect. 2006;114(5):773–778.

Journal article with digital object identifier (article not yet in print)

Sturmer T, Gefeller O, Brenner H. A computer program to estimate power and relative efficiency to assess gene-environment interactions in flexibly matched case-control studies. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. Advance Access: August 10, 2005. (DOI:10.1016/j.cmpb.2003.08.003).

Book

Rothman KJ, Greenland S, eds. Modern Epidemiology. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott-Raven, Publishers; 1998.

Chapter in a Book

Robins JM. Marginal structural models versus structural nested models as tools for causal inference. In: Halloran ME, Berry D, eds. Statistical Models in Epidemiology, the Environment, and Clinical Trials. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag; 1999:95–134.

Committee or corporate author

Self-reported illness and health status among Gulf War veterans. A population-based study. The Iowa Persian Gulf Study Group. JAMA. 1997;277(3):238–245.

Supplemental issue

Giovannucci E. Alcohol, one-carbon metabolism, and colorectal cancer: recent insights from molecular studies. J Nutr. 2004;134(suppl):2475S–2481S.

Thesis

Knoll EG. Mental Evolution and the Science of Language: Darwin, Muller, and Romanes on the Development of the Human Mind [dissertation]. Birmingham, AL: University of Alabama; 1987.

Abstract

Joffe M, Santanna J, Feldman H. Partially marginal structural models for causal inference [abstract]. Am J Epidemiol. 2001;153(suppl):S261.

Letter

Deddens JA, Petersen MR. Re: “Estimating the relative risk in cohort studies and clinical trials of common outcomes” [letter]. Am J Epidemiol. 2004;159(2):213–214.

Agency publication

National Center for Health Statistics. Plan and Operation of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–94. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics; 1994. (Vital and health statistics, series 1: programs and collection procedures, no. 32) (DHHS publication no. (PHS) 94-1308) (GPO no. 017-022-01260-0).

Conference presentation

Linna SL, Taanila A, Heikura U, et al. Shift of etiological pattern of intellectual disability in the two northern Finland birth cohorts 1966 and 1986 [abstract]. Presented at the Fourth Congress of the European Association of Intellectual Disability Medicine, Lahti, Finland, August 25–27, 2005.

Electronic article

Brownstein JS, Wolfe CJ, Mandl KD. Empirical evidence for the effect of airline travel on inter-regional influenza spread in the United States [electronic article]. PLoS Med. 2006;3:e401.

Web page/Website

Bureau of the Census, US Department of Commerce. Glossary of basic geographic and related terms—Census 2000. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census; 2001. (http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/glossary.html#glossary). (Accessed February 24, 2005).

US Environmental Protection Agency. Final rule. "National primary drinking water regulations; arsenic and clarifications to compliance and new source contaminants monitoring." Part VIII. Federal Register 66, no. 14 (January 22, 2001):6876–7066. (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ars/arsenid_finalrule.htm).

Health Care Financing Administration. 1996 statistics at a glance. Baltimore, MD: Health Care Financing Administration; 1996. (http://www.hcfa.gov/stats/stathili.htm). (Accessed December 2, 1996).

Database or database entry

Bureau of the Census, US Department of Commerce. Census 2000 summary file 3. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census; 2007. (http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/). (Accessed January 8, 2007).

National Center for Biotechnology Information, US National Library of Medicine. Reference SNP cluster report: rs2077647. (NCBI Single Nucleotide Polymorphism database). Washington, DC: National Library of Medicine; 2007. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SNP/snp_ref.cgi?rs=2077647).

Software manual

Stata Corporation. Stata statistical software, release 9. College Station, TX: Stata Corporation; 2005.

Media reference

The man who helped indict smoking [editorial]. New York Times. January 18, 1997:A22.

ABC News. What happened over there? 20/20, August 14, 1992. Denver, CO: Journal Graphics, Inc; 1992. (Transcript 1235).

Goode E. Study finds jump in children taking psychiatric drugs. New York Times. January 14, 2003:A21, A25.

PROOFS

All page-galley proofs are transmitted by e-mail as a PDF attachment. When they are received, they should be read carefully, corrected if necessary, and returned with the offprint order form within 48 hours of receipt. Important: When the offprint order form is returned, prepayment is requested. (See "Charges" for page charge schedule.)

CHARGES

Page charges

There is no page charge for papers of 3 or fewer printed pages (multipart papers published in a single issue of the Journal are considered a single contribution in computing page charges). For papers longer than 3 pages, the charge is $95 per page. All page charges are waived for Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE) Reviews.

Orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

Offprints

Authors are urged to order offprints prior to publication to cover anticipated needs; reordering after the issue has been published is considerably more expensive. Offprints are ordered in increments of 50 by filling out the offprint order form, which should be returned to the Journal office with the page-galley proofs. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are accepted for payment of author's alterations, page charges, and offprints.

Waiver of page charges

To be considered for a waiver of page charges, the authors must have performed the research without financial support. Any request for a waiver must be reviewed before the manuscript can be considered for publication. Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author assumes responsibility for any charges incurred.

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Supplementary data can be made available by the publisher as online-only content linked to the online manuscript.

Definition

Supplementary data are supporting material that cannot be included in the printed version because of space constraints and are not necessary in the full text of the manuscript but would nevertheless benefit the reader. They should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper but should contain data that are additional or complementary and are directly relevant to the article content. Examples include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, tables, questionnaires, or additional figures (including those in color).

Process

All material to be considered as supplementary data must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. Please indicate clearly the material intended as supplementary data upon submission. Also ensure that the supplementary data are referred to in the main manuscript at an appropriate point in the text. This material must be supplied to the production department with the article for publication, not at a later date. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication.

Files for supplementary data should be clearly marked as such and be accompanied by a summary of the file names and types.

Please note that supplementary data will not be copyedited, so ensure that the material is clearly and succinctly presented and that the style of terms conforms with the rest of the paper. Also ensure that the presentation will be compatible with any Internet browser.

Acceptable Formats

A maximum of 5 files is acceptable to make up the supplementary data unit for an article. The maximum size per file should not exceed 2 MB (although text files should be a great deal smaller), and files must be as small as possible so that they can be downloaded quickly. An HTML index page is usually created to link the supplementary data file(s) to the article. Please provide short titles (2–4 words) for each individual file; these will be used to create links to the files from the index page.

American Journal of Epidemiology authors have the option, at an additional charge, to make their paper freely available online immediately upon publication, under the Oxford Open initiative. After your manuscript is accepted, as part of the mandatory license form required of all corresponding authors, you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay to have your paper made freely available immediately. If you do not select the Open Access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription-based access and you will not be charged.

For those selecting the Open Access option, the charges for American Journal of Epidemiology vary depending on the institution at which the Corresponding author is based:

Optional Oxford Open Charges:

For a corresponding author based at an institution with an online subscription to the American Journal of Epidemiology:

• Regular charge - £900 / $1800 / €1350
  
• List B developing country charge** - £450 / $900 / €675
• List A developing country charge** - £0 / $0 / €0

For a corresponding author based at an institution that does not subscribe to the online journal:

• Regular charge - £1500 / $3000 / €2250
  
• List B developing country charge** - £750 / $1500 / €1125
  
• List A developing country charge** - £0 /$0 / €0

*Visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/jnls/devel/ for list of qualifying countries.

The above Open Access charges are in addition to any page charges and color charges that might apply.

If you choose the Open Access option you will also be asked to complete an Open Access charge form. You will be automatically directed to the appropriate version of the form depending on whether you are based at an institution with an online subscription to the American Journal of Epidemiology. Therefore, please make sure that you are using an institutional computer when accessing the form. To check whether you are based at a subscribing institution please use the Subscriber Test for the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Orders from UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the EU, we will assume that the service is provided for business purposes, please provide a VAT number for yourself or your institution and ensure you account for your own local VAT correctly.

Please see these guidelines for reuse of Oxford Open content.

AUTHOR SELF-ARCHIVING/PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.