Submissions

Author Guidelines

Peer Review and Ethics

JCPH follows the COPE guidance on publication ethics.  Authors should consult this for guidance on authorship, research ethics, conflicts of interest, redundant publication and plagiarism. Lead authors and principal investigators must ensure that people for whom they are responsible are aware of the requirements of national laws and regulations for the protection of human subjects and of the ethical codes of the relevant professional bodies.

The Editorial team of JCPH is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. Once your (anonymised) paper has been assessed for suitability by the Editor(s), it will then be peer reviewed by two independent, anonymous expert referees, each delivering at least one report.

Instructions to Authors

1. General

Please upload your paper in both Word and PDF format. The Word version should be fully identified and it must list all authors. The PDF version must be completely anonymized. 

Your paper should be organised in a structure suitable for the content.  All papers should have: title page (Word version only); abstract; keywords; main text; acknowledgments, including any declaration of conflicts of interest and sources of funding; references.

The main text should be organised with headings appropriate to the style and content, such as (for research articles) Introduction, Methods, Findings, Discussion.  Please do not number headings and sub headings.

Include any appendices in a separate file.

2.  Word Limits

Please include a word count for your paper.

Research papers should not normally exceed 8,000 words, including all text, abstract, notes and references, but exclusive of appendices.  We may consider longer papers if the topic/methods justify this.

Research & Practice Notes should not normally exceed 3,000 words (all included).

Commentaries should not normally exceed 4,000 words (all included).

3. Style Guidelines

There are a few requirements for house style:

• We accept any English spelling, but please ensure one style is used consistently throughout.
• Please use single quotation marks, except where ‘a quotation is “within” a quotation’.
• Long extracts of quoted material should be indented without quotation marks.
• Spell out numbers 1-10.
• Keep abbreviations to a minimum, remembering that an international and interdisciplinary readership may not be familiar with those common in your field. Spell all out on first use. Do not use abbreviations such as min, k (write them in full).
• Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. 

 4. Title page

Provide full names and affiliations for all authors and, where available, ORCiD identifiers. Indicate the order in which authors should be listed. Once a paper is accepted, we cannot change affiliations. Remove this page for the pdf version of your paper (which will be sent for review).

One author should be identified as the corresponding author.

5. Title, Abstract and Key Words

Include up to 5 key words. Most readers of your paper will only see the title, abstract and keywords, so do consider the key words that are likely to be discoverable to those in your field (not too broad; not too narrow), and ensure that all reflect the content of the paper.

To maximise discoverability, please consider a title that includes the study design and setting, as well as summarising the content.

Abstracts should be under 200 words. They should not include headings, citations or abbreviations.  Please write this as accessibly as possible, and remember that reviewers make decisions on whether to review based on the abstract: do ensure this clearly signals your contribution to critical public health scholarship.

6. Acknowledgments, funding & conflicts of interest

Use these sections if/as appropriate to list any funding details, in the format required by your funder, and any interests you have that conflict, or could be perceived as conflicting, with those of  the research.  If there are none, consider including a statement to that effect. (e.g. 'The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest’).

7. References

Please use APA style referencing with citations in form (author date), and listed alphabetically at end.  All  citations and references should be checked carefully before submission, and any embedded field codes (such as from referencing software) saved as text only to enable editing. Include a doi for all references.

Web sources cited should be given in full, with a date last accessed.

Please note that authors will be required to upload references to our platform prior to acceptance of their paper for publication. 

8. Figures and Tables

Please only include those that add to, rather than repeat, material in the texts.  Figures should be of high quality.

 All tables should be editable: please do not save as images.

9. Appendices

This can include supplementary methodological material (such as interview schedules, participant summaries, additional data/analysis tables), datasets, or illustrative material.   Supplemental material can be a video, dataset, fileset, sound file or anything which supports (and is pertinent to) your paper. 

10. Using Third-Party Material

It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that all necessary permissions are obtained for the use of any third-party material (text, images etc).