Guide for Authors
Click 
here for guidelines on Special Issues.
Click here for guidelines on Qualitative methods.
Social Science & Medicine provides an international and interdisciplinary
forum for the dissemination of social science research on health. We publish original research articles (both empirical and theoretical),
reviews, position papers and commentaries on health issues, to inform current research, policy and practice in all areas of common interest
to social scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers. The journal publishes material relevant to any aspect of health and healthcare
from a wide range of social science disciplines (anthropology, economics, epidemiology, geography, policy, psychology, and sociology),
and material relevant to the social sciences from any of the professions concerned with physical and mental health, health care, clinical
practice, and health policy and the organization of healthcare. We encourage material which is of general interest to an international
readership.
Journal Policies
The journal publishes the following types of contribution:
1) Peer-reviewed original research
articles and critical analytical reviews in any area of social science research relevant to health and healthcare. These papers may be
up to 8000 words including abstract, tables, and references as well as the main text. Papers below this limit are preferred.
2) Peer-reviewed
short reports of findings on topical issues or published articles of between 2000 and 4000 words.
3) Submitted or invited commentaries
and responses debating, and published alongside, selected articles.
4) Special Issues bringing together collections of papers ona
particular theme, and usually guest edited.
Ethics in
publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics
and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors
are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with
other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived
to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission
declaration and verification
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of a conference abstract or as part of a published lecture or thesis for an academic qualification), that it is not
under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible
authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or
in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article
may be checked by the originality detection software iThenticate. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/editors/plagdetect.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the
authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove
an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript
and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail,
fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors,
this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded
by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers
will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until
authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or
rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
(for more information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure
the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript
together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce
tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of
the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations
and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included,
the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has pre-printed
forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained
author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested
to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe
the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the articles;
and in the decision to submit it for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please
see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier
has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply
with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements
and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This
journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect platform. To prevent any conflict
of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been accepted for publication. The fee
of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions and funding bodies have entered
into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf).
Whatever access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your
article on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Submission to this journal occurs online and you will be
guided step by step through the creation and uploading of your files. Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/ssm.
The system automatically converts source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please
note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF files at submission for the review process, these source files are
needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for
revision, takes place by e-mail.
Reviewers
During submission you will be asked if you wish
to suggest the names and email addresses of potential reviewers. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not
the suggested reviewers are used.
Additional information
Please note author information
is entered into the online editorial system (EES) during submission and must
not be included in the manuscript itself.
Social
Science & Medicine does not normally list more than six authors to a paper, and special justification must be provided for doing
so. Further information on criteria for authorship can be found in Social Science & Medicine, 2007, 64(1), 1-4.
Authors should
approach the Managing Editor if they wish to submit companion articles.
Information about our peer-review policy can be found
here .
Please note that we may suggest accepted papers for legal review if it is deemed necessary.
Use of word-processing software
We accept most word processing
formats, but MSWord files are preferred. All author-identifying text such as title pages and references must be removed. Submissions
should be double spaced and use between 10 and 12pt font, and any track changes must be removed.
It is important that the file be
saved in the native formatof the original wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text
as simple as possible. Most formatting styles will be removed and replaced during typesetting. In particular do not use the wordprocessor's
options to justify or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically
designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table
grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns.
The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with
Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate
their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on
Electronic
artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions
on your wordprocessor. The editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity.
Authors should retain an
electronic copy of their manuscript.
Essential cover page information
The Cover Page should
only
include the following information:
• Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used
in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible and make clear the article's aim and health relevance.
• Author names and affiliations in the correct order.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name),
please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all
affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide
the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete
postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
• Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or
'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must
be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
• Any acknowledgements
Include if appropriate. These should be as brief as possible and not appear anywhere else in the paper.
Text
In
the main body of the submitted manuscript this order should be followed: abstract, main text, references, appendix, figure captions,
tables and figures. Do not place tables and figures in the main text. Author details, keywords and acknowledgements are entered separately
during the online submission process, as is the abstract, though this is to be included in the manuscript as well. During submission
authors are asked to provide a word count; this is to include ALL text, including that in tables, figures, references etc.
Title
Please
consider the title very carefully, as these are often used in information-retrieval systems. Please use a concise and informative title
(avoiding abbreviations where possible). Make sure that the health or healthcare focus is clear.
Abstract
An
abstract of up to 300 words must be included in the submitted manuscript. An abstract is often presented separately from the article,
so it must be able to stand alone. It should state briefly and clearly the purpose and setting of the research, the principal findings
and major conclusions, and the paper's contribution to knowledge. For empirical papers the country/countries/locations of the study should
be clearly stated, as should the methods and nature of the sample, the dates, and a summary of the findings/conclusion. Please note that
excessive statistical details should be avoided, abbreviations/acronyms used only if essential or firmly established, and that the abstract
should not be structured into subsections. Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full at the end of the abstract.
Research highlights
Research highlights are a short collection of 3 to 5 bullet points that convey an article's
unique contribution to knowledge and are placed online with the final article. We allow 125 characters per bullet point including
spaces. They should be supplied as a separate file in the online submission system (further instructions will be provided there). You
should pay very close attention to the formulation of the Research Highlights for your article. Make sure that they are
clear, concise
and capture the reader's attention. If your research highlights do not meet these criteria we may need to return your article to
you leading to a delay in the review process.
Keywords
Up to 8 keywords are entered separately
into the online editorial system during submission, and should accurately reflect the content of the article. Again abbreviations/acronyms
should be used only if essential or firmly established. For empirical papers the country/countries/locations of the research should be
included. The keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Methods
Authors of empirical papers are expected to provide
full details of the research methods used, including study location(s), sampling procedures, the date(s) when data were collected, research
instruments, and techniques of data analysis. Specific guidance on the reporting of qualitative studies are provided
here.
Footnotes
Endnotes and footnotes should not be used and any such information
incorporated into the main text. If unavoidable a very small number of endnotes can be listed separately at the end of the text. These
should be identified with superscript Arabic numbers.
Artwork
Electronic
artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
•
Save text in illustrations as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier,
Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention
for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of
the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our
website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the
detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is
finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings,
halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF:
Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000
dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If your electronic artwork
is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is'.
Please do not:
•
Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are
too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color
artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct
resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge,
that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations
are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs
from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or on the Web only. For
further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please
note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version should
you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the
figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in
the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number
tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them
with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables
do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation
in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any
references cited in the abstract must be given in full at the end of the abstract. Unpublished results and personal communications are
not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they
should follow the standard reference style of the journal (see below) and should include a substitution of the publication date with
either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication" Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted
for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date
when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication,
etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired,
or can be included in the reference list.
References in special issue articles, commentaries and responses
to commentaries
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the reference list (and any citations
in the text) to other articles which are referred to in the same issue.
Reference management software
This
journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp)
and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp). Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only
need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references and citations to these will be
formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
The current
Social Science & Medicine EndNote file
can be directly accessed by clicking
here.
Reference style
All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the
text of the manuscript. In the text refer to the author's name (without initials) and year of publication e.g. "Since Peterson (1993)
has shown that..." or "...as claimed elsewhere (Kramer, 1994)". For more than 2 authors the first author's name and "et al." should be
used e.g. (Annandale et al., 1994). The manuscript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spelling of authors' names and dates
are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list. Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citation lies entirely with
the author(s). Authors are also responsible for the accuracy of the content of the references.
References should be given in the following
form:
Annandale, E., & Hunt, K. (1998) Accounts of disagreements with doctors.
Social Science & Medicine, 46(1), 119-129.
Macintyre,
S., & Ellaway, A. (2000). Ecological approaches: Rediscovering the role of the physical and social environment. In L.F. Berkman, & I. Kawachi (Eds.),
Social epidemiology (pp. 332-348). New York: Oxford University Press.
Blaxter, M. (2010).
Health.
London: Polity.
The current
Social Science & Medicine EndNote file can be directly accessed by clicking
here.
Video data
Elsevier accepts video
material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they
wish to submit with their article may do so during online submission. Where relevant, authors are strongly encouraged to include a video
still within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content
and noting in the body text where it should be placed. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to
your video data. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to
ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with
a maximum size of 10 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier
Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. For more detailed instructions please visit our video
instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in
the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that
refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material
to support and enhance your research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications,
accompanying videos describing the research, more detailed tables, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied
will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors
should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.
For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier
(DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned
to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium
for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The
correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do
not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download
the files themselves. Wherever possible, please return corrected proofs within 48 hours. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs
which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the
Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations
function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your
corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including
replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof
only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the
article and author list as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do
everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections
are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be
guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response
is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF
file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the
article is accepted for publication. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the
journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.
For
inquiries relating to the submission of articles please contact the Managing Editor, Dr. Ryan Mowat at
rm158@leicester.ac.uk
