Appropriate cover letter (with CONSORT checklist if appropriate)
Conflict of Interest statement
Reviewer suggestions
Correct format (word counts, 1.5-spaced
throughout but table single-spaced, references checked)
The Title Page should include the usual - title, authors' names
and affiliations, the corresponding author's name and email address - as well as the word counts of the main text and abstract
Structured Abstract (Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions), indicating sample size, location and date of study, followed by keywords
Introduction with clear explanation of manuscript's novelty and importance
Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Reference list (alphabetical order)
Tables (begin
each on a separate page; legends indicating location and date of study)
Figure legends (all listed on a separate page)
Figures (indicate location and date of study and begin each on a separate page)
Relevant financial relationships
Précis (last unnumbered page)
Preventive Medicine is an international journal, publishing
original, scholarly manuscripts on all topics pertaining to
preventive medicine, primary care, epidemiology, and public health, as well
as methodology on and historical aspects of all these topics.
Article types (maximum number of words in main text) include Original
Research (3500 words for comparative intervention studies (e.g., randomized controlled trials), or 2500 words for studies not involving
comparative interventions), or shorter versions (1200 words, maximum of 2 tables and /or figures, 10 references maximum), Commentaries
(800 words), Review Articles (4000-4500 words), Book Reviews (1000-1500 words), and Letters to the Editor
(500-1000 words, 10 references maximum). Word count ranges do not include author citations within the text.
Manuscripts
judged appropriate for the journal by the Editor-in-Chief and the Editor-Statistics will receive an external review by peer reviewers,
including at least one with expertise in statistical methods if deemed necessary. Some manuscripts and their external reviews will also
be evaluated by Associate Editors with expertise in the relevant discipline. The final editorial decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief
and the Editor-Statistics.
Submission of Manuscripts.Preventive Medicine manuscripts should be submitted using the
journal's online submission and review web site, http://www.ees.elsevier.com/pm.
To use this submission route, please
go to the web site and upload your article and its associated artwork. A PDF is
generated and the reviewing process is carried out using
that PDF. All correspondence between the Editors and the corresponding author is performed on this system. Paper copies are no longer
required. However, please note that
source files will be required if your paper is accepted. If the manuscript cannot be submitted online,
or for any
questions regarding submission, please contact:
Preventive Medicine
Editorial Office
525 B Street,
Suite 1900
San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA
Telephone: (619) 699-6234
Fax: (619) 699-6859
E-mail: pm@elsevier.com
There are no submission fees or page charges.
Cover letter: Each manuscript should be accompanied by a brief cover letter
outlining the basic findings of the paper, their significance and the reasons for choosing Preventive Medicine. Authors are encouraged
to include the names,
Addresses (including email), and phone and fax numbers of one to three individuals they feel would provide the
most expert and careful review. For reports of randomized control trials, the cover letter should include a completed CONSORT checklist.
The Précis (for the Table of Contents), no longer than 30 words, includes the study's main conclusions, and preferably
contain the study's
sample size. This should be provided on a separate, unnumbered page at the end of
the manuscript.
Preparation of Manuscripts.Main headings are Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion,
and Conclusions. Text should be 1.5 line-spaced. Do not use footnotes in the text. Tables should be short, single-spaced
and begin on a separate page. Abbreviations should be avoided.
Title Page (p. 1) must include
counts for the numbers of words in the abstract (excluding subheadings), in the main text (excluding abstract, references, tables, etc.),
and for the numbers of tables and figures. Word count ranges do not include author citations within the text.
A structured
Abstract (p. 2), 200 words or less, comprising Objective, Method, Results, Conclusion. Abstracts should include sample sizes
and the location and date of the study. Below the abstract, 3 to 10 MESH-heading keywords must be provided.
The Methods section should include a separate, second-level subsection, Statistical analyses (if applicable), which concisely
describes the statistical methodology.
In the Discussion section a secondlevel
subsection, Study limitations and strengths,
is
strongly encouraged.
The Conclusions section should contain a concise summary
of the main study findings.
Tables
numbered 1, 2, 3,... should be concise and self-explanatory. Use a single top rule, a single rule below the headings, and a single
bottom rule. Avoid rules within the table body. Table legends should give details on the location and date of
the study, and the study population (if applicable). The aim of presenting tabled results is not only to show adjusted effects
but also to enable readers to understand the methods used, evaluate the results, and potentially integrate them into meta-analyses. Thus,
presentation of sufficient detail in tables to permit readers to compute crude (unadjusted) effects is strongly encouraged. (For example,
adjusted odds ratios should also be accompanied by subgroup sample sizes or percentages for each variable included in the model.)
Figures are numbered 1, 2, 3,... Figure legends should give details on the location and date of the study, and the study population
(if applicable).
List all figure legends on a separate page immediately preceding the figures.
The Acknowledgments should be brief and should precede the references.
Preparation of Supplementary Material.
Elsevier
now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish large table sets, supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, 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 ensure that data is provided 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. The supplementary material should be submitted
under ""Supplementary Material" when attaching your files at submission. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction
pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
References and reference list. In the text, references
should be cited by author and year (Harvard System).
More than one paper from the same author in the same year must be identified
separately, by the letters a, b, c, etc.,
placed after the year of publication. In the text, when referring to a work by more than two
authors, the name of the
first author should be given followed by et al. The reference list should be assembled in alphabetical
order beginning
on a separate page. Unpublished data, personal communications, and papers in preparation or
"submitted" should not
be listed in the references (but may be incorporated at the appropriate place in the text); work "in press" may
be listed
only if it has been accepted for publication. Personal communications must be accompanied by a letter from the named
person(s)
giving permission to quote such information. Abstracts (whether published or not), theses, and similar
material are not to be quoted
in the list. If necessary, they can be referred to in the text in parentheses and without
serial number, or be presented in footnotes.
Periodicals, books, and edited books should accord with the following
examples:
Flegal KM, Troiano RP, Pamuk ER, Kuczmarski RJ, Campbell
SM, 1995. The influence of smoking cessation on the prevalence of overweight in the United States. N Engl J Med 333, 1165-1170
Klitzman
S, Matte TD, Kass, DE, 2006. The urban physical environement and its effects on health. In:Freudenberg, N, Galea, S, Vlahov, D (Eds).
Cities and the health of the public. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, pp. 61-84.
If a publication is in press, the reference
should be made
as complete as possible, stating the name of the journal
and adding "in press." Abbreviations of journal titles
should
conform to those adopted by the List of Serial Title
World Abbreviations, ISDS International Centre, 20, rue
Bachaumont, 75002 Paris,
France (ISBN 2-904938-02-8).
Code of ethics. Whenever appropriate, authors should
state in their Methods section that their
institution's review
board has approved the study proposal, as well as the manner
in which informed consent was obtained from subjects
(if applicable).
Conflict of interest.Preventive Medicine requires full disclosure of all potential conflicts of
interest. All authors of all types of journal articles are required to indicate any financial interest in or arrangements with any company
whose product was used in a study or is referred to in the article or any other situations that may have potentially biased the work
reported, its conclusions, implications, or opinion statements. These include, for example, direct or indirect sources of funding for
the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition.
If the manuscript is published, acknowledgment of all sources of funding and financial involvements related to work must be made in the
paper, and whether the project was initiated and analyzed by the investigator or by the funding source must be divulged. At the end of
the manuscript text (and in the cover letter of the manuscript), under a subheading "Conflict of Interest statement", all authors must
disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their
work. If there are no conflicts of interest, the authors should state, "The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest."
Signed copies of the Preventive Medicine Conflict of Interest policy form are required upon submission. The Conflict of Interest
policy form can be downloaded here. In order to minimize delays,
we strongly advise that the signed copies of these statements are prepared before you submit your manuscript. The corresponding author
is responsible for sharing this document with all co-authors. Each and every co-author must sign an individual disclosure form. The corresponding
author is responsible for uploading their form and those of their co-authors.
Manuscripts are accepted for review with the understanding
that no substantial portion of the study has been
published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere
and that its submission
for publication has been
approved by all of the authors and by the institution where
the work was carried out. For manuscripts that do
not
meet the general criteria or standards for publication inPreventive Medicine, the corresponding author will be notified
as soon as possible and the paper will not be subjected
to detailed external review.
Copyright and permissions. Upon acceptance
of an
article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more
information on copyright, see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright).
This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination
of information. An electronic mail will be sent to the corresponding
author
confirming receipt of the manuscript. A
form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided after
acceptance.
If material from
other copyrighted works is included, the
author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright
owners and credit the source(s)
in the article. Elsevier has
preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact
Elsevier Global Rights Department, P.O. Box
800, Oxford
OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865
853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com.
US
National Institutes of Health (NIH) voluntary
posting ("Public Access") policy. Elsevier facilitates author
response to the NIH voluntary
posting request (referred to
as the NIH "Public Access Policy"; see http://www.nih.gov/ about/publicaccess/index.htm) by
posting the author's peerreviewed
manuscript directly to PubMed Central on request
from the author, 12 months after formal publication.
Upon
notification from Elsevier of acceptance, we will ask you to
confirm via e-mail (by e-mailing us at NIHauthorrequest@
elsevier.com)
that your work has received NIH funding and
that you intend to respond to the NIH policy request, along
with your NIH award number to
facilitate processing. Upon
such confirmation, Elsevier will submit to PubMed Central
on your behalf a version of your manuscript that
will include
peer-review comments, for posting 12 months after formal
publication. This will ensure that you will have responded
fully
to the NIH request policy. There will be no need for you
to post your manuscript directly with PubMed Central, and
any such posting is
prohibited.
Authors' rights. As an author you (or your employer or
institution) may do the following:
- make copies (print
or electronic) of the article for your own
personal use, including for your own classroom teaching
use
- make copies and distribute
such copies (including through
e-mail) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal
use by such colleagues (but not commercially
or systematically,
e.g., via an e-mail list or list server)
- post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites
including
electronic pre-print servers, and to retain indefinitely
such version on such servers or sites
- post a revised personal version
of the final text of the article
(to reflect changes made in the peer review and editing
process) on your personal or institutional website
or server,
with a link to the journal homepage (on elsevier.com)
- present the article at a meeting or conference and to
distribute
copies of the article to the delegates attending
such a meeting
- for your employer, if the article is a 'work for hire', made
within
the scope of your employment, your employer may
use all or part of the information in the article for other
intra-company use (e.g.,
training)
- retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any
processes or procedure described in the article
- include the
article in full or in part in a thesis ordissertation
(provided that this is not to be published commercially)
- use the article
or any part thereof in a printed compilation
of your works, such as collected writings or lecture notes
(subsequent to publication of
your article in the journal)
- prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into
book-length form, or to otherwise re-use
portions or excerpts
in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original
publication in the journal
Language Polishing:
Authors who require information
about language editing and copyediting services pre- and
post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/locate/languagepolishing
or contactauthorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note
Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility
for any
products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through
our services or in any advertising. For more information
please
refer to our Terms & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/locate/termsandconditions.
Free color on the Web.
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 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 note: Because of
technical complications that can arise in converting color
figures to "gray
scale" (for the printed version should you not
opt for color in print), please submit in addition usable blackand-
white files corresponding
to all of the color illustrations.
Proofs. PDF proofs will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding
author. To avoid delay in
publication, only necessary
changes should be made, and corrections should be returned
promptly.
Author Inquiries. Authors
may also keep track of the
progress of their accepted articles, and set up e-mail alerts
informing them of changes to their
manuscript status, by
tracking their papers at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. Contact details for questions arising
after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to
proofs, are provided when an article is accepted for publication.
