Health Education & Behavior publishes authoritative empirical research and commentary on critical health issues of interest to a broad range of professionals whose work involves understanding factors associated with health behavior and evidence-based social and behavioral strategies to improve health status. The journal audience consists primarily of researchers and practitioners in health behavior and health education. Typical manuscripts published in the journal include empirical research using qualitative or quantitative methods; formative, process, and outcome evaluations; and literature reviews.
Categories of ManuscriptsHealth Education & Behavior invites, considers, and publishes manuscripts in the following categories:
Editorials and Commentaries: The journal reviews both solicited and unsolicited editorials of up to 1,200 words (no abstract) and commentaries (including Perspectives on controversial topics, methodological issues, and theory) of up to 2,500 words of text (abstract of up to 150 words), plus references.
Full-Length Original Articles: Full-length original articles comprise reports of empirical research and other studies of up to 3,500 words of text (abstract of up to 250 words), plus tables and figures, and references.
Review Articles: Review articles present state-of-the science literature reviews of up to 4,000 words of text (abstract of up to 250 words), plus tables and figures, and references.
Brief Reports: Brief reports comprise manuscripts reporting empirical research or other studies that can be up to 2,000 words of text (abstract of up to 150 words) and no more than 2 tables and/or figures, plus up to 15 references.
Manuscript Submission Requirements
All manuscripts should be submitted online at the
Health Education & Behavior submission portal at
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/heb. The site contains detailed instructions on how to submit and track the progression of a manuscript through the review process. All manuscripts will be assigned a manuscript number, and authors will receive email confirmation acknowledging receipt of submission. Authors should not transmit hard copies of their manuscripts to the journal office. Inquiries regarding a manuscript or the journal should be directed to
info@sophe.org.
Style and format: All manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the style and format requirements of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). The manuscript, including captions, footnotes, tables, and references, must be double-spaced with 1-inch margins in a 12-point font. The elements of a manuscript should include: title page, abstract, body of text, references, and tables, figures or other graphic images.
Title page: The title page should include the title only so as to blind the work to reviewers.
Abstract: An abstract of up to 250 words (unless otherwise indicated) followed by up to 6 keywords, must accompany each submission.
Body of text: Introduction, methods, results, and discussion (including implications for theory, policy, and/or practice).
References: All references should be prepared in accordance with the format and style requirements of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). References to unpublished material are discouraged. Footnotes to the text should be avoided.
Tables and figures: All tables, figures, and graphic images should be cited sequentially in text, numbered, and accompanied by explanatory captions, and constructed in accordance with the style and format requirements of the APA Publication Manual. Do not include tables and figures within the body of the manuscript; tables and figures can be included at the end of the document or uploaded in separate document files.
Language and other requirements: Manuscripts must be submitted in English. Authors should refrain from using the term subjects when describing or referring to research participants. Alternative terms such as respondents, research participants, or some other more specific designation (e.g., youth, females, or residents) should be used. In addition, each manuscript submitted is expected to include implications fortheory, policy, and/or practice in the discussion section. Manuscripts reporting the results of an intervention should provide a detailed description of the intervention in the methods section. Reports of randomized controlled trials should adhere to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement (Rennie, 2001) and reports of evaluations with nonrandomized designs should adhere to therequirements of the Transparent Reporting of Evaluation with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND) (Des Jarlais, Lyles, Crepaz, & the TREND Group, 2004).
Appendixes and supplemental material: Appendixes should not be included in the manuscript. However, appendixes containing questionnaires and instruments, intervention materials, supplemental data analyses, or other materials or information that are proposed by the authors(s) and deemed to be valuable by the editor may be made available for public access via links to a section for such material at the Health Education & Behavior website.
Pre-Publication Proofs and Post-Publication ReprintsProofs of manuscripts accepted for publication will be supplied to the corresponding author prior to publication. The corresponding author has the responsibility to check the accuracy of typesetting and copyediting, including references, and to return corrected proofs within the specified time allotted. Authors may be charged for excessive alterations to the proofs. The corresponding author will receive a PDF containing a copy of the article as it appears in the issue in which it will be published, and is to be used in accordance with the specified instructions. Corresponding authors are responsible for distributing the PDF with any other coauthors of the manuscript.
CopyrightSince a U.S. Copyright Law became effective in January 1978, the transfer of copyright from author to publisher, heretofore implicit in the submission of a manuscript, must now be explicitly transferred to enable the publisher to ensure maximum dissemination of the author’s work. A copy of the agreement executed and signed by each author is required with each manuscript submission. The agreement can be found on the website. (If the article is a “work for hire,” the agreement must be signed by the employer.) No manuscript can be considered accepted unless a signed copyright transfer agreement is executed and submitted. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission and pay any and all fees for the use of any quotation(s) over 300 words from previously published material; non-original photographs, figures, or tables or any portion thereof, exclusive of data; and quotes of any length from newspapers, magazines, poems, songs, and anything broadcast over radio or television. Without a copy of written permission on file with the publisher, the quotation(s) cannot be used. Original photographs require signed releases from those photographed.
Research Integrity, Honesty, and Compliance With Ethical PrinciplesResearch reported in the journal should comply with ethical principles that are contained in the American Psychological Association Ethical Guidelines for Research With Human Subjects, the Declaration of Helsinki Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (Williams, 2008), and the Unified Code of Ethics for the Health Education Profession (Capwell, Smith, Shirreffs, & Olsen, 2000).
References- Capwell, E. M., Smith, B. J., Shirreffs, J., & Olsen, L. K. (2000). Development of a Unified Code of Ethics for the Health Education Profession: A report of the National Task Force on Ethics in Health Education. Journal of School Health, 70, 318-319.
- Des Jarlais, D. C., Lyles, C., Crepaz, N., & the TREND Group. (2004). Improving the reporting quality of nonrandomized evaluations of behavioral and public health interventions: The TREND statement. American Journal of Public Health, 94, 361-366.
- Rennie, D. (2001). CONSORT revised—improving the reporting of randomized trials. JAMA, 285, 2006-2007.
- Williams, J. R. (2008). The Declaration of Helsinki and public health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 86, 650-651.
