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.  We use double-anonymised peer 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

We only consider work that has not already been published (including on preprint servers, or publicly available as reports on institutional websites) or under consideration with other journals. 

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: an abstract; keywords; main text; references. The non-anonymised Word version should also have: a title page; any necessary acknowledgements, declarations of conflicts of interest, and sources of funding; and ORCiD identifiers, if available

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 250 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 journal references.

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

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). 

11. Policy on the use of AI in manuscript preparation

We recognise that AI tools are increasingly used to assist in the preparation of manuscripts as well as for data analysis. Two broad forms of AI can be used to assist authors preparing articles. Assistive AI (such as Grammarly or MS Copilot) can enhance human writing by offering support and suggestions about grammar, spelling and style. Generative AI (such as ChatGPT) can be used to produce novel content following a text prompt or question from the user. However, the distinction between the two is fast disappearing: Grammarly now offers options such as ‘improve it’, or ‘make it more detailed’ for sections of text; and Copilot, incorporated into MS Word, can suggest ‘draft content’, and rewrite and refine text.

We do not have a blanket ban on the use of Assistive AI for authors: assistive AI helps to ‘level the playing field’ with respect to global inequalities in access to publishing; it can assist neurodivergent individuals who may find aspects of writing challenging; and its use has become widespread.

However, there are well documented risks around AI-generated content, particularly when used with little oversight.  A significant difference remains between using AI to enhance the readability and grammar of writing and using AI to generate entire drafts or new ideas from user prompts.

JCPH does not allow any AI tool to be listed as co-author, and we do not publish AI-generated graphics or pictures. We assume that all articles submitted to JCPH are based on ideas originating from human authors and that non-human entities have not prepared a significant part of any draft. Authors, if using generative modes of AI tools such as Grammarly, must disclose any use of AI in manuscript preparation, including assistance with translation, structure, phrasing, content generation, and literature summarising.  This should be clearly stated in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript. All content of submitted manuscripts, including citations and references, must be carefully checked for accuracy and appropriateness. You as author are responsible for ensuring that your work has not plagiarised or infringed the copyright of others’ work. Note that generative AI often fails to acknowledge others’ work accurately.