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Help for Authors


MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND REVIEW PROCESS

Submit a paper http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ha

HIGHLIGHTS OF IMPORTANT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR HEALTH AFFAIRS' AUTHORS

The following are some of the main points that authors need to know when submitting a manuscript. Details on many of these topics are presented after this summary of highlights.

1. All papers must be submitted through our online manuscript processing system, which requires the establishment of a user account.

2. When you submit your paper, be prepared to supply information about the following:

a. Title of the paper

b. Authors' names, formal titles, affiliations, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses

c. Word count (including abstract, text, and endnotes but not including exhibits)

d. A list of funders that supported you or your coauthors in preparing the paper or the research on which it is based

e. Any affiliations of you or your coauthors that are relevant to the content/subject of your paper, financial or otherwise, that you have not already disclosed by virtue of listing employers/funders. At the editors' discretion, this information will be included with your paper if it is published.

3. Authors must not be identified anywhere in the submitted manuscript documents. Authors’ names must not appear on the abstract page, on the first page of the text, or in headers or footers in the paper.

4. An abstract, not to exceed 100 words, should be included as part of the manuscript text.

5. Your paper should be prepared using a standard word-processing format (such as MS Word) in 12-point Courier New font or its equivalent, double-spaced, with a minimum of one-inch margins. These formatting rules apply to all text portions of the paper (including abstract and notes), but not exhibits or supplemental materials.

6. All pages should be numbered.

7. Cited references and explanatory notes should be presented in one section of consecutively numbered endnotes—no footnotes, please. Callouts in the text that refer to these notes should be consecutively numbered throughout the document (no repeat note callouts in the text).

8. All exhibits (both tables and figures) must be submitted as files that are separate from the manuscript text files. Exhibits are numbered consecutively in order of their appearance, not separately by type of exhibit (table or graph). Authors must provide numerical plotting data for all figures, and all exhibits must be provided in their electronic form.

9. Authors may include documents to supplement their manuscript. Supplemental documents may be used for extended methodological or technical discussion, extended bibliographies, or exhibits that are too long or complex to appear in print. Such documents should be referred to in the main text and should clearly labeled as supplements.

If you have any questions about the manuscript submission process, please contact Executive Editor Donald E. Metz at 301-347-3907, or via e-mail, dmetz@projecthope.org.

GENERAL CONTENTS

Health Affairs authors should direct their papers to a diverse national audience interested in present and future health policy issues. New data, reports of major new trends, and serious proposals for reform are encouraged. The focus of Health Affairs articles is on policy implications, not elaborate discussions of methodology and data sources. Thus, we ask authors to keep discussion of data and methods brief. However, the data and methods must be adequately assessed in the peer review process. For this purpose, if a study's data and methods cannot be explained adequately in a brief discussion, we encourage authors to provide more methodological detail in the form of an appendix or other explanatory section for review purposes only.

WEB EXCLUSIVES

Beginning in 2001, Health Affairs began publishing a significant number of peer-reviewed papers as online-only Web Exclusives. These papers meet the same standards of review and revision as papers appearing in the print edition; they are an integral part of the Health Affairs body of work. Web Exclusives appear on average once a week; subscribers and others who have requested notification of new materials receive weekly e-mail alerts, and Web Exclusives are available free to all site visitors for two weeks, after which they become available on a pay-per-view basis or to paying subscribers. Although authors may indicate their interest in Web Exclusive publication, the editors reserve the right to pursue online-only publication with submitted papers, particularly those addressing an issue of high topicality or policy interest.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Abstract: Please include an abstract (unstructured) of 100 words or fewer.

Length: Please submit your paper in twelve-point Courier New font or its equivalent, double-spaced, with a minimum of one-inch margins; please number all pages. Suggested word lengths:

• Feature: 5,000 words

• Commentary, DataWatch, and UpDate Report: 2,500 words

• GrantWatch Essay: 3,500 words

Papers submitted for the Health Tracking section should examine trends over time and analyze dynamics of change in the health care marketplace. Suggested lengths:

• Trends: 2,500 words

• MarketWatch: 3,000 words

• From the Field: 1,500 words

Word counts include the abstract, main text, and endnotes, but not exhibits or supplemental materials.

Exhibits: Authors may submit exhibits to present data, graphs, and other types of illustrative materials. There is no strict limit on the number of exhibits an author may include with a paper, but we typically do not exceed six exhibits per published paper, and we encourage authors to use exhibits sparingly. Exhibits should be submitted in the software in which they were composed (such as MS Excel or PowerPoint) so that they are editable and so that any data points are recoverable; exhibits should not be submitted as embedded images or objects that cannot be edited. Exhibits may be combined into a single document for submission, but they should be submitted separately from the text, as specified in the detailed submission guidelines. See below (“Style”) for additional information on exhibits.

Supplemental Materials: Health Affairs is aimed at a diverse audience of readers, many of whom are primarily interested in the policy implications of research findings and not the technical details of research methodologies. We therefore encourage authors to be concise in describing details of methods and data (authors should aim for 1,000 words or less of methods/data discussion in their papers). This does not relieve authors of supplying information that is necessary to evaluate the credibility of their work. If 1,000 words is not sufficient for these purposes, authors are encouraged to include with their submission more detailed description of data, methods, and analysis in the form of a technical appendix for review purposes only.

You may use as much space as you need for such an appendix, but please bear in mind that clarity and brevity are still expected, as reviewers are often under considerable time pressure to complete their work. The word count of supplemental materials does not count against the word count of the paper for publication purposes.

PLEASE NOTE: If your analysis is based on regressions, please include with your manuscript a technical appendix showing the full specification of each regression--number of observations, dependent and independent variables (including any transformations from the variables discussed in the text), coefficients, either standard errors or t-statistics, R-squared and F statistics. This information will not be published with your paper but will be made available to reviewers to facilitate their judgment of whether the analysis supports the conclusions in the text; and if the paper is published, it will be available online to readers. You may decide how much if any of the regression results to display in exhibits in the paper, but the presentation should be concise, and presented in a form that would be suitable for nonexperts.

If you have any questions about what types of information should be included in the paper and which should be relegated to an appendix, please contact the editors.

Manuscript type: Although we appreciate authors' familiarity with the various sections of the journal, the editors retain the right to assign articles to sections.

Authorship: Only people who participated in the writing of the manuscript should be listed as authors (other contributors may be mentioned in an acknowledgment). More than five authors may require justification, in accordance with the authorship criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (please note that Health Affairs has its own submission guidelines and does not adhere to the general guidelines for manuscript submission found on the ICMJE Web site). Authors' names must not appear anywhere in the files submitted with the manuscript.

Manuscript Submission: All manuscripts must be submitted via Health Affairs’ online manuscript processing system. You must have a user account before you can submit a paper. If you have a user account, log in using your user ID and password at the login screen. If you have an account but have forgotten your user ID or password, go to the login screen, enter your e-mail address in the “Password Help” field, then click on “Go.” You will receive e-mail with instructions on how to obtain a user ID and password. If you do not have a user account, you can establish one by going to the login screen and clicking on “Create Account” in the upper right-hand corner of the page. To create an account, you will need to supply your first and last name, e-mail address, job title and institution, mailing address, phone number, a password, and a list of your areas of expertise.

Specific instructions on how to submit papers are available via the “submit” links on the Help for Authors main page.

Revision process: Once a manuscript has gone through peer review and the editors have decided that a request for revisions is warranted, we request a similar submission process; details are available through the appropriate link on the Help for Authors main page. You will be given more specific instructions for the final submission at that time; please read the revision letter carefully and comply with all editors' requests.

Outside editorial assistance: The Health Affairs copyeditors work with every accepted paper to apply consistent style, correct grammar, and appropriate length. Also, Health Affairs editors routinely give detailed suggestions for improving a manuscript during the peer-review process. However, they cannot offer direct assistance to authors before a paper is accepted, other than answering routine questions and providing access to the style guide on request. If authors require more assistance with their writing, especially before the submission process begins, editorial services are available to provide this assistance for a fee. One such service is ScienceDocs (details are available at http://www.sciencedocs.com).

Health Affairs is not affiliated with ScienceDocs or any other company offering editorial services. Authors may use these services at their own discretion and risk; use of such services does not directly affect a paper’s chances of acceptance, and all accepted papers are still subject to copyediting as described above.

STYLE

General: Authors should refer to the Chicago Manual of Style ( University of Chicago Press) as a style guide. Endnotes, including both sources and explanatory matter, should be kept to a minimum and numbered in the order in which they appear in the text, not alphabetically.

Sources: Journal-article citations must include the volume, issue number, and year of publication. Please do not provide sources with abbreviated journal names, inverted author last/first names, or other conventions followed by the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (the so-called Vancouver requirements). Improperly formatted notes may be returned to the author for revision, possibly delaying a paper's publication.

Endnotes: Here are some of the highlights of Chicago’s guidance on endnotes, as modified by Health Affairs.

  • Health Affairs does not use footnotes; all notations and references should be integrated into one section of consecutively numbered endnotes that are listed in the order in which they are called out in the text.
  • Do not repeat note numbers in the text; each reference to a citation in the text (i.e., a “callout”) should be associated with a new note and note number
  • Publications with one, two, or three authors or editors should list all three (using their first initials and last names). Publications with more than three authors or editors should list the first author only, followed by "et al." (J. Smith et al., "Title of Article," etc.).
  • Repeated citations should use a short form, including the author’s last name(s) and an abbreviated citation of the title
  • Use Arabic, not Roman, numbering
  • Do not place more than one endnote in a sentence; to avoid this, you may group multiple references under one note number.

Many authors use software packages, such as EndNote, to prepare their lists of references. The Health Affairs editors have learned that several of these packages contain an endnote output style that claims to be the Health Affairs style. This was not prepared with our knowledge or input; it does not produce endnotes that conform to the requirements listed here. At this time, the Health Affairs editors cannot support the use of this style in preparing endnotes. We also cannot offer technical assistance to authors who use this software. We urge authors to contact the software company for assistance, and we advise authors that some manual editing will be required if this software is used to produce references for submission to Health Affairs.

Endnotes should conform to the following examples.

1. M.S. Sparer and L.D. Brown, "Uneasy Alliances: Managed Care Plans Formed by Safety-Net Providers," Health Affairs 19, no. 4 (2000): 23-35.

2. R.H. Miller and H.S. Luft, "Managed Care Plan Performance since 1980: A Literature Analysis," Journal of the American Medical Association 271, no. 19 (1994): 1512-1519.

3. P. Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 5-20.

4. N. Jeffrey, "Kaiser Permanente Decides It Won't Cover Viagra Pills," Wall Street Journal, 22 June 1998.

Additional examples are available from the editors on request and will be included with all revision instructions.

If you cite documents appearing on the World Wide Web, please include the following information: Author's name, document title, date of publication, complete and accurate URL, and date of access. Example:

5. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, "Third Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Administrative Simplification of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act," 27 March 2000, http://www.ncvhs.hhs.gov/yr3-toc.htm (accessed 25 August 2003).

Health Affairs Web Exclusives should be cited as follows:

6. J.S. Weissman et al., “Physicians Report on Patient Encounters involving Direct-to-Consumer Advertising,” Health Affairs 23 (2004): w219-w233 (published online 28 April 2004; 10.1377/hlthaff.w4.219).

For specific questions on endnote style, contact Andrea Zuercher, managing editor, azuercher@projecthope.org or tel: 785-842-2611

Exhibits: Exhibits should be mentioned (“called out”) in the flow of the text, not as an added note suggesting their placement. Each exhibit should include a note indicating the source(s) for the data/information presented. Exhibits should have clear titles and labels, and should be understandable at a glance. Exhibits must be numbered consecutively as they appear, not separately based on whether they are a table or a graphic. Tables should not be excessively horizontal in layout, because of the size of the Health Affairs page. If the work in the exhibit is not original and has been published elsewhere, you may need to obtain copyright permission from the publisher.

All graphics must include plotting points. Please include only the plotting points that were used to produce each graphic, and please label all plotting points so that they match the finished graphic exactly. Exhibits that are prepared using software (such as Excel or PowerPoint) other than the word processing software used to compose the article text must be supplied in their original software, rather than being "embedded" in the word processing file (as outlined in the submission instructions for each type of paper), and all plotting data must be easily accessible. Exhibits may be grouped together in a single document, such as a Word file, an Excel spreadsheet, or a PowerPoint file.

Online Supplements and Appendices: As described above, authors may submit supplemental materials to accompany their papers as online-only supplements. These materials should be submitted with the revision and clearly marked as supplements. They should be formatted as the authors wish them to appear online. The Health Affairs editors do not edit or format online supplemental materials; we take submitted files, produce PDFs, add a brief text passage identifying the materials with the published paper, and post them on the Web site along with the article. These PDFs are sent to authors for approval before the article is posted. The appearance and accuracy of all online supplemental materials are the responsibility of the authors.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

eLetters: Health Affairs offers a feature called eLetters, electronic letters to the editor, which allows you to submit your reaction to specific articles for online posting. eLetters are a moderated forum, which means that all responses are read, edited if necessary, and approved by the editorial staff before they are posted. Information about eLetters is found in the content box (the box on the top right side of the first page) of every article on the Health Affairs Web site. There is no word limit to eLetters, but you are encouraged to be brief and state your point(s) concisely and politely.

Submissions to eLetters are considered for eventual print publication at the discretion of the editors. If we do consider your letter for print publication, we will contact you first, and you will have the opportunity to approve galleys. Otherwise, eLetters submissions will remain online only and will be archived with the contents of the site. eLetters are linked with the articles to which they were submitted in response, and they can also be read on a summary page.

Authors whose papers are addressed in eLetters are notified automatically and are given the opportunity to respond in a subsequent eLetter. The editors reserve the right to end exchanges between eLetters authors that do not focus on matters of substance.

Letters To The Editor In Print: Letters in response to specific print articles can also be submitted for publication in a future print edition. Letters should be brief (250-300 words) and sharply focused. You may send your letter as an attachment to e-mail, along with your complete contact information (including work affiliation, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone and fax numbers) to letters@healthaffairs.org. Or you may use our online letters submission form. Health Affairs reserves the right to publish submitted letters either online or in the print edition; unsolicited letters to the editor will not be acknowledged.

Authors whose papers are addressed in letters to the editor are given the opportunity to write a letter in response, for simultaneous publication.

All submitted letters become the property of Health Affairs and are subject to normal copyright restrictions, according to our Copyright Policy.

REVIEW PROCESS

We acknowledge all manuscripts upon receipt and submit them promptly for evaluation. All published papers are subjected to peer review; authors are encouraged to suggest names of appropriate reviewers for their papers during the online submission process, although the editors cannot guarantee that all requests will be honored.

Health Affairs receives more than 1,000 manuscripts each year. All papers are reviewed by the editors for timeliness and relevance to the journal’s objectives. About half of these submissions are selected for external review. For papers that are not selected for external review, the journal notifies authors of its decision within two to three weeks of submission. For papers that are selected for external review, authors can expect to wait about two to three months from the date of submission until notification of the journal’s decision. For papers that are selected for revision, the length of time between the revision request and publication will vary widely (from six weeks to several months) depending on various factors, including the extent of revision required, the need for additional review and revision, whether the paper will be published in a bound volume or on our Web site, etc. Our acceptance rate for unsolicited papers is currently between 10 and 15 percent.

To check the status of a submitted paper, log in to our online manuscript processing system. Once you have logged in, you will be at your main menu. Click on “ Author Center,” then under “My Manuscripts,” select the “Submitted Manuscripts” link. This page will display manuscripts of yours that are currently under consideration at Health Affairs, along with their status.

ACCEPTED PAPERS

After Health Affairs accepts a manuscript for publication and schedules it either in a print issue or as a Web Exclusive, galleys are sent to the contact author for review. Corrections to the galleys should be returned to the editorial office within two days of receipt, following the instructions of the corresponding editor. Health Affairs sends all galleys electronically as PDF files except under prior arrangement with the editors. All authors must sign a copyright transfer agreement prior to publication. Upon a manuscript's publication in Health Affairs, each author receives two copies of the issue and reprint ordering information.


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