Guide for Authors

Checklist (see below for further explanation)

1. Appropriate cover letter (with CONSORT checklist if appropriate)
2. Conflict of Interest statement
3. Reviewer suggestions
4. Correct format (word counts, 1.5-spaced throughout but table single-spaced, references checked)
5. 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
6. Structured Abstract (Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions), indicating sample size, location and date of study, followed by keywords
7. Introduction with clear explanation of manuscript's novelty and importance
8. Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions
9. Acknowledgments
10. Reference list (alphabetical order)
11. Tables (begin each on a separate page; legends indicating location and date of study)
12. Figure legends (all listed on a separate page)
13. Figures (indicate location and date of study and begin each on a separate page)
14. Relevant financial relationships

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.

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.

Artwork. Please visit our web site at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions for detailed instructions on preparing electronic artwork.

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 thefirst 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://publicaccess.nih.gov/) 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.