Families, Systems, & Health

Instructions to authors

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.

Please use the Manuscript Submission Checklist (PDF, 40KB) as a guide for submission. Authors must review all items on this checklist before submitting to the journal.

Manuscript submission

All manuscripts are considered on the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic form and that they are not under consideration by another publication or medium. All manuscripts should respect patient confidentiality; research involving human subjects must include ethical approval.

Submit manuscripts electronically (.rtf, .doc, or .pdf) via the Manuscript Submission Portal.

Submit Manuscript

Rodger Kessler, PhD
C.R. Macchi, PhD
Co-editors, Families, Systems, & Health

General correspondence and inquiries may be directed to Peer Review Coordinator Sheena Mouton.

Authors may obtain a user ID and password on the first visit. Instructions and support for the submission process are available on the site.

All parts of the manuscript must be available in an electronic format; generic rich text format (.rtf), PDF, or Microsoft Word.

Manuscript criteria

All manuscripts should be concise, well organized, and clearly written using active voice to present ideas relevant to the journal's scope of integrated care, and should address health and at least one of the two other domains of family functioning and/or systems thinking.

We welcome contributions from authors whose first language is not English and recommend that authors obtain professional assistance in written scholarly language prior to submission to ensure clarity, grammar, syntax, and organization.

Manuscript preparation

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition. Authors should ensure bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7^th edition are available. Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.

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.

When required, structured abstracts should follow the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRAD) format.

Reporting standards: Adhere to relevant Equator Network reporting guidelines, such as consort for randomized trials, strobe for observational studies, squire for quality improvement studies, or prisma for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Submit a completed reporting guideline checklist as a Document for Reviewers and include a participant flow diagram in the manuscript. Adhere to the APA Journal Article Reporting Standards (jars) for items that are not addressed in the Equator Network guidelines.

Considering equity, diversity, and inclusion

In an effort to address the FSH strategic plan around equity, diversity, and inclusion, please ensure your manuscript addresses the following:

• Use person-first language (see APA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Inclusive Language Guidelines (PDF, 600KB)).
• Use system-centered language to acknowledge systems that uphold oppression and health inequities while preserving the humanity of affected persons (see Buchanan, Perez, Prinstein, & Thurston, 2021, p. 1102). 
• In the abstract and in the manuscript methods section, report the year(s) of data collection to help contextualize the study.
• Consistent with APA’s Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies, describe the sample characteristics. The abstract should include at least some sociodemographic characteristics of the sample (recognizing space constraints). The manuscript methods section should include more details. While all of the following are not required, please carefully consider: age, sex, gender identity, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability status, and the intersection of these attributes. Describe groups as specifically as possible.
• Studies sampling White/Western, education, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations should justify their use of such samples and discuss limits to generalizability.
• Consider whether the design of the study, framing of the results, and/or other aspects of the study or manuscript may inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes about historically excluded and oppressed groups or could be misused or misinterpreted to cause harm to these groups.

Manuscript categories

Manuscripts should be organized using the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD) structure with references using APA Style. All research articles and brief reports must state in the Methods section which institutional review board (IRB) provided ethical review and oversight of the study or exemption from IRB review.

See Table below for word limit by manuscript category. Word count does not include the content of the title page, abstract, appendices, tables, figures, or reference list following the manuscript. Reference terms in the text are included in word count.

Tables or figures should be used to display demographic data and results and to organize the presentation of other information (e.g., themes, concepts, implications) in a way that makes it easily digestible for the reader.

Departments

Policy and management

Articles submitted to Families, Systems, & Health under the "Policy and Management" section may contain up to 1,500 words and should use APA Style for references.

The policy brief should review the relevant literature, have a clear rationale for the methodology, integrate findings with current thinking and practice, and examine a suggestion and implications for policy change.

Rationale for the proposed policy recommendation can be based on existing data in the literature or extend from data that authors analyze. The work must address at least two of the three domains of this journal. Interested authors are referred to this article on writing health policy briefs (PDF, 25KB).

Book and media reviews

High-quality media reviews should be 1,000 words or less and should contain the following components: reasons the media item is important, the intended audience, potential broader audiences it could interest or apply to; its strengths and benefits, shortcomings and limitations; how it fits into the larger body of literature and media within the field, and the implications of the resource.

Writing should be balanced, concise and professional. Reviews are helpful when they deliver insight beyond what a viewer could ascertain if glancing over the media resource, its website and description. Beyond previewing it or reading other reviews about it, the reviewer must "consume" the entire resource. Authors must attend to their biases and are expected to disclose these at the time of submission (e.g., an author reviewing her close colleague's website or training series). Similarly, reviews that are overly positive or negative are undesirable as they are less useful to the reader (Guetterman, 2016; Lee et al., 2010).

As with all peer-reviewed publications, submission does not guarantee acceptance for publication.

Sharing Our Stories

Sharing Our Stories: Narratives, Poetry, and 55 Word Stories curates medical humanities pieces that utilize creative writing-narratives, poetry, haiku, or 55-word stories to capture key experiences of wellness, illness, healing the health care system, and/or standout moments in healthcare.

Submissions should not exceed 1000 words and may take the form of a personal narrative, a poem utilizing any format including free verse, haiku, or a 55-word story.

Pieces will be peer-reviewed based on fit with the journal mission, use of well-crafted language, and the impact of the narrative. Contact our department co-editors Jo Marie Reilly or Hugh Silk if you have questions or if you are interested in becoming a reviewer for this section of the journal.

Cover letter/Title page

Both the cover letter and the title page of the manuscript should include the title, authors' names in order of contribution, and affiliations.

Designate a corresponding author and include address, e-mail, phone, and fax. A word count should also be included on the title page (excluding title page, abstract, appendices, tables, figures, and reference list following the manuscript).

An author note on the title page should also indicate:

• full names of authors, in the order of their institutional affiliations, with lead author listed first;
• affiliation and location during the study plus current affiliation and location if they have changed since the study;
• grant support and role of funder if any in role of preparation;
• any acknowledgment the authors wish to convey regarding collaborators whose contributions did not merit authorship; and
• any real or perceived conflict of interest that the author may have, considering the ICMJE criteria for authorship.

Please see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition) for further guidance on the format of an author note.

Abstract and keywords

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

Author contribution statement using CRediT

The APA Publication Manual (7th ed.) stipulates that “authorship encompasses…not only persons who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study.” In the spirit of transparency and openness, the journal has adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to describe each author's individual contributions to the work. CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to a manuscript.

Submitting authors will be asked to identify the contributions of all authors at initial submission according to this taxonomy. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the CRediT designations will be published as an author contributions statement in the author note of the final article. All authors should have reviewed and agreed to their individual contribution(s) before submission.

CRediT includes 14 contributor roles, as described below:

• Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
• Data curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
• Formal analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Funding acquisition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
• Investigation: Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
• Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
• Project administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
• Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
• Software: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
• Supervision: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
• Validation: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
• Visualization: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
• Writing—original draft: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
• Writing—review and editing: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision—including pre- or post-publication stages.

Authors can claim credit for more than one contributor role, and the same role can be attributed to more than one author.

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

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012

Figures

Preferred formats for graphics files are TIFF and JPG, and preferred format for vector-based files is EPS. Graphics downloaded or saved from web pages are not acceptable for publication. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file. When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

Resolution

• All color line art and halftones: 300 DPI
• Black and white line tone and gray halftone images: 600 DPI

Line weights

• Adobe Photoshop images
  • Color (RGB, CMYK) images: 2 pixels
  • Grayscale images: 4 pixels
• Adobe Illustrator Images
  • Stroke weight: 0.5 points

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

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.

If your manuscript was mask reviewed, please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.

References in text

Cite authors and dates of works used. First citation may include up to five authors; in subsequent citations of 3+ authors, state surname of first author, then et al. and the publication date, e.g., Jones et al. (1994). Multiple citations must be listed in alphabetical order.

Editorial and peer-review process

One of the two editors reviews submitted manuscripts to assess quality and determine fit for the Journal. Articles sent out for peer review show potential to make a new and useful contribution to the literature.

Families, Systems, & Health  has recently moved to a doublemasked review process; neither authors' nor peer reviewers' identities are known to each other.  

All accepted manuscripts are edited according to the Journal's style and returned to the author as page proofs for approval. Authors take responsibility for all statements made in their work.

The manuscript file should be anonymous and should not include:

• references to the author's previous work in the first person (I, my, we, our)
• author's name in the file path or document footer
• author institution details
• author contact details
• author notes
• acknowledgements
• competing interests (if declared)
• ethics approval statements that refer to your institution

All relevant author information (the title of the manuscript along with all authors' names and institutional affiliations) should be provided on the separate title page file (not sent out to reviewers).

Please ensure that tracked changes are switched off if previously used. The file will automatically be converted to PDF once uploaded through the submission system and will be available to the reviewers.

Responsibility for masking the manuscript rests with the authors; manuscripts will be returned to the author if not appropriately masked. If the manuscript is accepted, authors will be asked to make changes in wording so that the paper is no longer masked.

If you have any questions about our doublemask review please do not hesitate to contact the editorial office.

Please do not remove, redact or in any way anonymize references in the manuscript, including to citations your own previous work. We realize that an astute reviewer will be able to figure out who you are if you refer to your previous work, but reviewers often need to see citations supporting statements in your manuscript, especially ones that relate to the methods or help interpret your findings.

Public significance statement

Authors submitting manuscripts to Families, Systems, & Health are required to provide a short statement of one to two sentences to summarize the article's findings and significance to the educated public. This description should be included within the manuscript on the abstract/keywords page.

• View Guidance for Translational Abstracts and Public Significance Statements

Editing and final proofs

After an article has been accepted for publication, it is edited for conformity of style to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), clarity of presentation, coherence, punctuation, standard usage of terms, spelling, and so on.

The first author will receive the copyedited manuscript for review and must return it within two business days of receipt.

Reprint orders

Authors may order reprints of their articles from the printer when they receive their copyedited manuscript for review.

Academic writing and English language editing services

Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors.

Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.

Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.

Submitting supplemental materials

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

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

For full details on publication policies, including use of Artificial Intelligence tools, please see APA Publishing 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 Full Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 41KB)

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

See APA’s Publishing Policies page for more information on publication policies, including information on author contributorship and responsibilities of authors, author name changes after publication, the use of generative artificial intelligence, funder information and conflict-of-interest disclosures, duplicate publication, data publication and reuse, and preprints.

Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.

Editors

Rodger Kessler, PhD, ABPP
University of Colorado, United States

CR Macchi, PhD, MEd, LMFT, CFLE
Arizona State University, United States

Associate editors by content area

Dissemination and implementation

Cady Berkel, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Diversity

Stacy Ogbeide, PsyD
University of Texas, United States

Family systems

Tai Mendenhall, PhD
University of Minnesota, United States

Global integrated healthcare

Ron O'Donnell, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Health systems leadership

Stacy Ogbeide, PsyD
University of Texas, United States

Helen L. Coons, PhD
University of Colorado, United States

Integrated care in women’s health settings

Helen L. Coons, PhD
University of Colorado, United States

Payor and financial issues

Jennifer Yturriondobeitia MSW, DBH
Cornerstone Whole Health Organization, United States

Policy and administration

Sarah Hemeida, MD
University of Colorado, United States

Susan Mathieu, MPP
University of Colorado, United States

The medical perspective of integrated healthcare

Jill VanWyk, MD
University of Colorado, United States

Founding editor

Donald A. Bloch, MD (1983–1996)

Former editors

Jodi Polaha, PhD
East Tennessee State University, United States

Robyn L. Shepardson, PhD
VA Center for Integrated Healthcare, United States

Nadiya Sunderji, MD, MPH (2019-2021)

Larry Mauksch, MEd (2013–2018)
University of Washington School of Medicine, United States

Colleen T. Fogarty, MD, MSc (2013–2018)
University of Rochester, United States

Alexander Blount, EdD (2008–2013)
Antioch University New England, United States

Thomas Campbell, MD (1996–2008)
Highland Family Medicine, United States

Susan McDaniel, PhD (1996–2008)
University of Rochester Medical Center, United States

Editorial board

Tyler Barreto, MD
Family Health Associates, United States

David Bauman, PhD
Regis University, United States

Bridgette Beachy, PsyD
Community Health of Central Washington, United States

Catherine Hudon, MD, PhD
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

Marisa Kostiuk, PhD
University of Colorado, United States

Courtney Legge, PsyD
University of Colorado, United States

George Leibowitz,PhD, LICSW
Stony Brook University, United States

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• Innovations in Developing a Behavioral Health Workforce for Team Based Care:

  Special issue of APA's journal Families, Systems, & Health, Vol. 40, No. 4, December 2022. The purpose of this special issue is to highlight emerging research and projects to address workforce shortages and innovations in training paradigms, including those that could address the need for increased diversity.

• Clinical Informatics:

  Special issue of APA's journal Families, Systems, & Health, Vol. 39, No. 1, March 2021. The articles in this special issue reflect the cutting edge of health care, research and technology, where there is as much risk as there is promise of delivering stability to our dynamic health care system.

• Strategies for Evaluating Integrated Care in the Real World:

  Special issue of the APA journal Families, Systems, & Health, Vol. 35, No. 2, June 2017. In the articles, on-the-ground clinicians and administrators test empirically informed hypotheses about practice transformation and population health management, using the results to produce shared learning within and across systems.

• Ethical Quandaries When Delivering Integrated Primary Care:

  Special issue of the APA journal Families, Systems, & Health, Vol. 31, No. 1, March 2013. Includes articles about informed consent and confidentiality; patient and provider relationships; ethical issues in chronic pain, military settings, rural settings, and end of life decisions; and research and training issues.

• The Patient Centered Medical Home:

  Special issue of the APA journal Families, Systems & Health, Vol. 28, No. 4, December 2010. Articles discuss various issues in the patient-centered medical home, including incorporating disparate services; operational and clinical components; continuity of care; and more.

• Primary Care-Mental Health Integration in the Department of Veterans Affairs:

  Special issue of the APA journal Families, Systems, & Health, Vol. 28, No. 2, June 2010. Articles discuss various issues involved in integrating primary care and mental health care in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Journal equity, diversity, and inclusion statement

The coeditors, associate editors, and department editors of Families, Systems, & Health value and aspire to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Demonstrating our commitment to this purpose, we developed a strategic plan for adopting recommendations identified in 2021 by APA Journals as key practices for promoting EDI in scientific communication and publishing—and began implementing it early in 2022.

Broadly, we aim to foster EDI within our internal practices and editorial activities. We aim to disseminate equitable content that is representative of all communities, not just of majority identity persons. We welcome a diverse community of authors, reviewers, and readers. We strive for inclusive science in which the voices of underrepresented clinicians/researchers and patient/family populations are amplified, and we will create opportunities to elevate underrepresented perspectives in coordination with the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (CFHA). We look for the impact of those efforts in the research and practice communities and in our published content. We hold space and openness to the many dimensions of diversity, including (but not limited to): age, sex, gender identity, racial and ethnic identity, culture, sexual orientation, disability status, socioeconomic status, educational level, clinical diagnoses, geography, professional discipline or guild, and career stage.

We acknowledge shortcomings, including limited diversity in the editorial team and board heretofore. We are always learning and eager to improve. We commit to ongoing, iterative work to improve EDI efforts within Families, Systems, & Health. A sample of recent/prior efforts designed to enhance EDI within the journal include:

• implemented a double-masked review policy to promote a more equitable peer review process that reduces implicit bias
• required author contribution statements for all published articles (e.g., using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy [CRediT]) to promote equity and inclusion in recognizing authors’ efforts
• implemented use of impact statements for all published articles to help make work more accessible to broader and diverse audiences
• encouraged associate editors and editorial board members to complete demographic questions in their Editorial Manager profiles to assess diversity on our editorial team and help us identify areas for growth
• featured narratives, poetry, haiku, and 55-word stories on racial injustice and COVID-19 in the first special Sharing Our Stories e-issue published online in 2020

Our strategic plan for implementing real change in the way EDI is considered within Families, Systems, & Health for 2022 includes the following, which is only a start to our work:

• adopt an actionable equity, diversity, and inclusion statement for the journal and publish it on our webpage to communicate our intentions
• create a more inclusive list of author and reviewer classification terms for use in the Editorial Manager to encourage submissions about topics in diversity science, communicate that we value EDI submissions, and improve discoverability for EDI-related articles
• revise our instructions to authors to require authors to: (a) use bias-free language, person-first language, and systems-centered language, (b) include more detailed demographic descriptions in the abstract and methods section, (c) justify non-diverse samples and discuss limits of generalizability, (d) report year of data collection in the abstract and methods to provide context for studies, and (e) consider reflective practice questions
• increase the diversity of the editorial board in the context of an existing need to grow the board to address gaps in specific content areas, methodological expertise, and professional disciplines
• identify a method and/or metrics for evaluating progress and impact of current priorities in the area(s) of EDI

Inclusive study designs

• Collaborative research models
• Diverse samples

Definitions and further details on inclusive study designs are available on the Journals EDI homepage.

Inclusive reporting standards

• Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines (required)
• Author contribution roles using CRediT (required)
• Impact statements (required)
• Year(s) of data collection (required)
• Participant sample descriptions (required)
• Sample justifications (required)

More information on this journal’s reporting standards is listed under the submission guidelines tab.

Pathways to authorship and editorship

Reviewer mentorship program

This journal encourages reviewers to submit co-reviews with their students and trainees. The journal likewise offers a formal reviewer mentorship program where graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from historically excluded groups are matched with a senior reviewer to produce an integrated review.

Other EDI offerings

Masked peer review

This journal offers masked peer review (where both the authors’ and reviewers’ identities are not known to the other). Research has shown that masked peer review can help reduce implicit bias against traditionally female names or early-career scientists with smaller publication records (Budden et al., 2008; Darling, 2015).

• Special sections

Announcement

• Call for reviewers

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