American Journal of Orthopsychiatry

As the principal publication of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice, the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (AJO) reflects the Alliance’s goal of informing policy, practice, and research concerning behavioral health, social justice, and well-being. Consistent with that mission, the journal publishes articles that clarify, challenge, or reshape the prevailing understanding of factors in the prevention and correction of injustice and in the sustainable development of a humane and just society. AJO publishes theoretical, analytic, and empirical articles on topics related to the Alliance’s historic values and themes and that contain clear implications for clinical practice, prevention, public health, law, and/or social policy.

AJO is an interdisciplinary journal, publishing the work of scholars and researchers in anthropology, criminology, law, nursing, psychiatry, psychology, social work, sociology, public administration, public health, and other disciplines.

Contemporary topics in AJO’s topical scope include, but are not limited to, public behavioral health and prevention; institutional reform; causes and solutions to behavioral healthcare disparities; adaption of behavioral health methods to the needs of racial, ethnic, cultural and other minority groups; responses to natural and human-made disasters; immigrants and refugees; underserved behavioral health populations; protection of vulnerable people; and sociocultural dimensions of behavioral health problems.

Articles published by AJO are generally one of three types:

• First and most conventionally, AJO publishes reports of empirical research, testing hypotheses or otherwise incrementing knowledge about behavioral health and social justice; AJO does not generally consider unsolicited literature reviews or analyses that do not include new empirical findings.
• Second, AJO occasionally invites leading scholars to guest-edit special sections or issues on topics of particular interest. Such special features typically contain review articles or new findings, solicited by the guest editor through an open call for manuscripts. The guest editor works with the editors to coordinate peer reviews of the manuscripts that are submitted in response to invitations.
• Third, AJO includes Social Innovations, a feature in magazine format, intended to promote conversation about strategies for establishing new social contexts and changing social norms to create more auspicious circumstances for behavioral health and social justice.

Co-Editors

Symposia Editor

Jill D. McLeigh
University of Colorado Anschutz

Articles Editor

William Spaulding
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Senior Editors

Oscar A. Barbarin
University of Maryland, College Park

Gary B. Melton
University of Colorado Anschutz

Editorial Assistant

Sharon Crout
Clemson University

Editorial Board

Howard Adelman
University of California, Los Angeles

Mona Amer
American University in Cairo

Elisabeth Backe-Hansen
Norwegian Institute for Social Research

Ellen Bassuk
Center for Social Innovation, Needham, MA

Asher Ben-Arieh
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Rami Benbenishty
Bar Ilan University

John Brekke
University of Southern California

Kendell Coker
University of New Haven

Heather Corliss
San Diego State University

Jaap Doek
Leiden University

Howard Dubowitz
University of Maryland School of Medicine

Felton Earls
Harvard University

Eric Elbogen
Duke University

Joyce Epstein
Johns Hopkins University

Eric Evans
Disability Rights Nebraska

Thomas Farmer
Virginia Commonwealth University

Frederick Frese
Northeast Ohio Medical University

Jim Garbarino
Loyola University of Chicago

Virginia Gil-Rivas
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Mati Heidmets
Tallinn University

Debra Hope
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Matthew Howard
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Iheoma Iruka
University of Nebraska

Ryan Kilmer
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Ibrahim Aref Kira
Center for Cumulative Trauma Studies

Jill Korbin
Case Western Reserve University

Roger Levesque
Indiana University

Nancy Liu
University of California, Berkeley

Robert Lonne
University of New England

M. Brinton Lykes
Boston College

Kathryn Marley Magruder
Medical University of South Carolina

Michael McCart
Oregon Social Learning Center

James McDonell
Clemson University

David Moxley
University of Oklahoma

Virginia Murphy-Berman
Skidmore College

Kim Oates
University of Sydney

Ellen Olshansky
University of Southern California

Kenneth Pargament
Bowling Green State University

Sita G. Patel
Palo Alto University

David Penn
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Gilbert Reyes
Santa Barbara, California

Jack Saul
The New School for Social Research

Stefan Schulenberg
The University of Mississippi

Anna Skosireva
University of Ottawa

Carlos Sluzki
George Washington University

Victor Strasburger
The University of New Mexico School of Medicine

Cris Sullivan
Michigan State University

Tony Tan
University of South Florida

Luis Vargas
Samaritan Counseling Center, Albuquerque, NM

Nancy Wolff
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

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Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.

Submission

Submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal.

Jill D. McLeigh
University of Colorado School of Medicine

William Spaulding
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

General correspondence should be directed to Sharon Crout in the Editorial Office.

As noted in the journal description, AJO publishes theoretical, policy-analytic, and empirical articles on topics related to the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice's historic values and themes. Articles may also be grouped by their format and source.

In that regard, there are three contexts for selection of manuscripts for publication as articles in AJO.

• First and most conventionally, scholars interested in the topical domains that are within AJO's scope are encouraged to submit individual manuscripts for consideration.
• Second, AJO occasionally invites leading scholars to edit special sections or issues on topics of particular interest. Such special features typically contain articles solicited by the guest editor, who coordinates initial reviews of the manuscripts that are submitted in response to these invitations.
• Third, AJO includes a unique magazine-in-a-journal. This feature is called Social Innovations and is intended to promote conversation about strategies for establishing new social settings and changing social norms to create more auspicious circumstances for mental health promotion.

AJO rarely considers review articles that do not include new findings. Interested authors should discuss such reviews with the editors prior to submission.

Articles for Social Innovations

Like other articles in AJO, those chosen for publication in Social Innovations are expected to be well grounded in empirical research and in the values that have sustained orthopsychiatry across multiple generations. Unlike other articles in AJO, however, those selected for Social Innovations are written in magazine style and are intended for discussion not only in the mental health professions but also among general audiences of people who are educated, thoughtful, and socially concerned.

The writing in Social Innovations is at the level of The Atlantic or Harper's, and the articles are lucid, informative, lively, and provocative. Articles in the section are concise (typically 10 to 20 double-spaced manuscript pages).

Readers who study the articles in Social Innovations and who are members of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice may obtain continuing education credit from the Alliance's partner, Red Toad Road Company, an APA-approved provider. Instructions for receipt of credit are included in each article in the section.

Articles included in Social Innovations are ordinarily invited. However, they are sometimes based on manuscripts that were initially presented in conventional form through the procedures for consideration of manuscripts generated by individual scholars or teams of scholars in the field. Authors with ideas for articles in Social Innovations should contact AJO Symposia Editor Jill McLeigh to determine the suitability of the proposed articles and, if appropriate, to obtain specific guidelines in regard to the style of articles for inclusion in Social Innovations.

Manuscript Selection

All manuscripts considered by AJO are subject to peer review.

Selection of manuscripts is based on

• relevance to the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice’s mission, with clear implications for clinical practice, prevention, public health, and/or social policy;
• contribution of new findings to understanding or solution of problems related to behavioral health and social justice;
• importance in development or refinement of pertinent theory;
• scientific merit, including the rigor of philosophical, legal, behavioral and social analyses;
• quality of writing (i.e., clarity, accuracy, and brevity of presentation); and
• interest, comprehensibility, and usefulness for an interdisciplinary audience of scholars, policy makers, practicing professionals, and graduate students in pertinent disciplines and professional training programs.

Masked Review Policy

AJO has a policy of masked review for all submissions. Manuscripts should be prepared in a form suitable for masked review, with obvious indicators of the authors' identity deleted from the narrative. A separate title page will be required that should list all author names and corresponding author contact information.

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts submitted to American Journal of Orthopsychiatry should be prepared in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6^th Edition (2010).

Review APA's Checklist for Manuscript Submission before submitting your article.

Formatting

Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.

Below are additional instructions regarding the preparation of display equations, computer code, and tables.

Display Equations

We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.

To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:

• Go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object.
• Select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu.

If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.

Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.

Computer Code

Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.

In Online Supplemental Material
We request that runnable source code be included as supplemental material to the article. For more information, visit Supplementing Your Article With Online Material.

In the Text of the Article
If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.) If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.

Tables

Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.

Submitting Supplemental Materials

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the PsycARTICLES^® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.

Abstract

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page.

Public Policy Relevance Statements

Authors submitting manuscripts to the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry are required to provide 2–3 brief sentences regarding the public policy relevance of the study or meta-analysis described in their paper. This description should be included within the manuscript on the abstract/keywords page. It should be written in language that is easily understood by both professionals and members of the lay public.

When an accepted paper is published, these sentences will be boxed beneath the abstract for easy accessibility. All such descriptions will also be published as part of the Table of Contents, as well as on the journal's web page. This new policy is in keeping with efforts to increase dissemination and usage by larger and diverse audiences.

Examples of these 2–3 sentences include the following:

• "Coming out to others as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) in adolescence shows strong associations with lower levels of depression and more satisfaction and self-esteem in young adulthood, in spite of victimization that youth may experience because of being LGBT. This study suggests that school policies should not inhibit youth from coming out, and school personnel and administrators should be held accountable for providing a safe environment for all students."
• "Little is known about the effectiveness of housing interventions for homeless families. This systematic review documents the lack of evidence on which to build sound policy to address and end family homelessness and highlights the need to develop an evidence base to determine what works and for which subgroups of families."
• "Cyber bullying is a significant problem among middle and high school students. These findings suggest that students were often cyber bullied by someone they considered a friend and that students bullied others online who were considered friends. It is thus important that policy makers incorporate an understanding of peer-to-peer victimization in their prevention and intervention efforts in the field of cyber abuse."
• "When children participated in the enriched preschool program Head Start REDI, they were more likely to follow optimal developmental trajectories of social– emotional functioning through third grade. Ensuring that all children living in poverty have access to high-quality preschool may be one of the more effective means of reducing disparities in school readiness and increasing the likelihood of lifelong success."

To be maximally useful, these statements of public policy relevance should not simply be sentences lifted directly from the manuscript.

They are meant to be informative and useful to any reader. They should provide a bottom-line, take-home message that is accurate and easily understood. In addition, they should be able to be translated into media-appropriate statements for use in press releases and on social media.

References

List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

• Journal Article:
  Hughes, G., Desantis, A., & Waszak, F. (2013). Mechanisms of intentional binding and sensory attenuation: The role of temporal prediction, temporal control, identity prediction, and motor prediction. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 133–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028566
• Authored Book:
  Rogers, T. T., & McClelland, J. L. (2004). Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Chapter in an Edited Book:
  Gill, M. J., & Sypher, B. D. (2009). Workplace incivility and organizational trust. In P. Lutgen-Sandvik & B. D. Sypher (Eds.), Destructive organizational communication: Processes, consequences, and constructive ways of organizing (pp. 53–73). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Figures

Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.

The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.

For more information about acceptable resolutions, fonts, sizing, and other figure issues, please see the general guidelines.

When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.

The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., "the red (dark gray) bars represent") as needed.

For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:

• $900 for one figure
• An additional $600 for the second figure
• An additional $450 for each subsequent figure

Permissions

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).

On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.

• Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 13KB)

Publication Policies

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

See also APA Journals^® Internet Posting Guidelines.

APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).

• Download Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 38KB)

Authors of accepted manuscripts are required to transfer the copyright to APA.

• For manuscripts not funded by the Wellcome Trust or the Research Councils UK
  Publication Rights (Copyright Transfer) Form (PDF, 83KB)
• For manuscripts funded by the Wellcome Trust or the Research Councils UK
  Wellcome Trust or Research Councils UK Publication Rights Form (PDF, 34KB)

Ethical Principles

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).

In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).

APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.

Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.

• Download Certification of Compliance With APA Ethical Principles Form (PDF, 26KB)

The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist, Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.

Other Information

• Appeals Process for Manuscript Submissions
• Preparing Auxiliary Files for Production
• Document Deposit Procedures for APA Journals