MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

New from October 2005. Please submit all manuscripts via our new online submission and peer review website http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jph

More details submissions instructions are available. We suggest that you print out both this Instructions to Authors document and the submissions instructions so that you can refer to them both during the preparation and submission of your manuscript Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed here.

For all authors of accepted manuscripts a copyright form should be sent directly to the production office. It is a legal requirement for the Publisher to keep a copy of the original form on file. To download your copyright form please click here.

Articles submitted to the Journal of Public Health should be original work and should be contributed solely to this journal unless the authors reserve the rights to themselves, before publication, by agreement with the Editors.

The Journal of Public Health invites submission of papers on any aspect of public health research and practice. We welcome papers on the theory and practice of the whole spectrum of public health across the domains of health improvement, health protection and service improvement, with a particular focus on the translation of science into action. Papers on the role of public health ethics and law are welcome. We aim to promote the highest standards of public health practice internationally through the timely communication of current, best scientific evidence. Our main criteria for grading manuscripts are scientific originality and impact, as well as relevance to public health practice.

TYPES OF MANUSCRIPTS

Original Papers - should be between 2000 and 3000 words with no more than 4 tables or figures. Further information, for example details of methodology, questionnaires and additional tables can be added for publication in the electronic version.

Perspectives - presents critical views on controversies in public
health practice, policy and politics in an analytic essay format. The
lead article should be no longer than 3000 words plus 5
figures/tables/illustrations, and is usually accompanied by 2 or 3
commentaries, each at about 800 words plus at most 1
table/figure/illustration. Articles and commentaries in this section
are usually commissioned but the Editors welcome authors' ideas and
proposals.

Chekhov's corner - focuses on the intersection of the arts and humanities with public health practice. An article should be no longer than 3000 words plus 5 figures, tables or illustrations.

Correspondence to the Editors - should be of no more than 500 words. The Editors reserve the right to make revisions.

Book Reviews - these are normally commissioned directly by the Editors.
Reviews should be no more than 3-400 words in length and should provide a critique of the text and an indication for which audiences they might be most suitable.

Updates - these are short topical updates from key public health
institutions providing evidence to underpin public health practice.

Articles are approximately 350 words long, with short readable texts,
bullet points, and boxes. Regular contributions are currently invited
from National Institute for Clinical Excellence, Health Protection
Agency and the Cochrane Collaborative Public Health Group.

Individuals with other ideas are welcome to discuss them with the Editors.

When drafting your paper, please remember that we have a worldwide readership.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org) have published a paper titled “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” and submitted papers should be consistent with this.

TIMESCALE

We make every effort to deal with submissions to the journal as quickly as possible. All papers are acknowledged on receipt and receive editorial review within 3 weeks. About 50% of papers submitted are rejected at this stage. The decision time on papers sent for review is usually about 7 – 10 weeks from submission. After acceptance, your paper will be published online and citable in 6 – 8 weeks, and in the next available quarterly hard copy issue. Overall, about 20% of papers submitted are eventually accepted, usually appearing online 3 – 4 months and in print about 10 – 12 months after initial submission.

GENERAL FORMAT

While we can accept most word processor formats, the preferred options are Word (.doc) or .rtf file. The page set-up should be set to A4 or American quarto paper sizes. Use one-and-a-half spacing throughout the manuscript and do not insert page numbers. Please avoid using footnotes

SECTIONS OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Title page should include the full title, the surname and initials of each author, plus their main department, institution, city with postal code and country. Addresses may also be given as numbered affiliations. The corresponding author should be indicated, and their e-mail address provided. We do not include details of academic awards but we do include Honorary titles.

Abstract The second page of the manuscript must contain only the Abstract. The abstract should be structured under the following headings: Background; Methods; Results; Conclusions. Reference citations should be avoided. The abstract should be no longer than 200 words.

Discussion We ask all authors to structure the Discussion section with sub-headings as follows: Main finding of this study What is already known on this topic What this study adds Limitations of this study

Acknowledgments should be included at the end of the text and not in footnotes. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies; include any grant numbers where appropriate.

References. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. In the text references should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. References cited only in tables or figures should be numbered in sequence according to the first mention of the table or figure in the text. All references cited should be listed according to the form of reference adopted by Index Medicus. Up to six authors can be listed; if the number exceeds six, quote the first three followed by et al. The sequence for a standard article is: author(s); title; journal; year; volume; first and last page numbers. The sequence for a book or other publication is: author(s), editor(s) or compiler(s); title; edition number; place of publication; publisher's name; year; first and last pages of reference (if relevant).

Figure Legends should be typed on a separate sheet. Define all symbols and abbreviations used in the figure. Common abbreviations and others in the preceding text should not be redefined in the legend.

Tables should be in table format, not inserted as graphics, on separate sheets and numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. They should be self-explanatory, with a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to tables indicated by lower case letters are acceptable, but they should not include extensive experimental detail.

ILLUSTRATIONS

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) should be referred to in the text as Figure 1, etc., which should be abbreviated to 'Fig. 1.' only in the figure legend. Illustrations should be submitted in Adobe Photoshop compatible formats, preferably .tif, or alternatively .eps or .jpg, and saved as separate files, not embedded in the text file. If submitting line drawings which require reduction, please check that the lettering will be clearly legible after the drawing has been reduced to the size at which it will be printed. After reduction, letters should not be smaller than 1.5 mm in height.

AUTHORSHIP

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contribution to conception and design, execution, or analysis and interpretation of data. All authors should be involved in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Assurance that all authors of the paper have fulfilled these criteria for authorship should be given in the covering letter.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

At the point of submission, the Journal of Public Health's 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 co-authors 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 co-authors 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 co-authors, 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.

LANGUAGE EDITING

Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.

AUTHOR SELF-ARCHIVING/PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY

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

OFFPRINTS

The publishers supplies a URL for online access to the article free of charge. Offprint order forms are sent out with the proofs, and should be returned with the proofs to Oxford University Press. Late orders submitted after the journal is printed are subject to increased prices.

COPYRIGHT

It is a condition of publication in the journal that authors assign copyright to The Faculty of Public Health. 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 assigning copyright, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance.

GETTING HELP

If you experience any problems during the online submission process please use the 'Author Help'function, which takes you to specific submission instructions, or 'Get Help Now', which takes you to the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Alternatively, contact the Editorial Office at the following email:

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING

OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS
Journal of Public Health 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 licence 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 vary Journal of Public Health depending on the institution at which the Corresponding author is based (see below).

Optional Oxford Open charges:

For a Corresponding author based at an institution with an online subscription to Journal of Public Health:

• 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.

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.

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

If you choose the Open Access option you will also be asked to complete an Open Access charge form online. 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 Journal of Public Health. 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 link for Journal of Public Health.