Detail of editorial management of American Journal of Health Behavior is available at:

https://ajhb.org/journal-reviewers/editorial-board/

Publisher Policies

Direct URLs to the publisher’s editorial and publishing policies that pertain to all journals.

https://ajhb.org/copyright-issues/copyright/

• Editorial policies (URL):

The Am J Health Behav seeks to improve the quality of life through multidisciplinary health efforts in fostering a better understanding of the multidimensional nature of both individuals and social systems as they relate to health behaviors.

To provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of personal attributes, personality characteristics, behavior patterns, social structure, and processes on health maintenance, health restoration, and health improvement to disseminate knowledge of holistic, multidisciplinary approaches to designing and implementing effective health programs, and to showcase health behavior analysis skills that have been proven to affect health improvement and recovery.

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that they are submitted solely to the Journal and have not been previously published elsewhere. All pages should be numbered. Manuscript should consist of an intro and sections titled METHODS, RESULTS, and CONCLUSIONS/DISCUSSION. The manuscript should end with Human Subjects Approval Statement, Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figures. Use Arabic numerals throughout. Use “AMA Manual of Style” 10th Edition as your guide.

Whereas, the American Journal of  Health Behavior has no specific maximum length for papers, we suggest the you prepare yours so that it does not exceed 5000 words (approximately 18 typed double-spaced pages) excluding the title page, abstract, references, tables, and/or figures.

Initial Editorial Review

            Managing editor is responsible:

• To confirm if submitted manuscript covers the scope of AJHB
• If quality of manuscript is up to standard of AJHB
• If manuscript does not meet our standard, we reject in initial step.

                 Following is list of our reviewers

https://ajhb.org/journal-reviewers/review-board/

• Peer review policy (URL):

https://ajhb.org/submitting-manuscript/ethical-guidelines/

To decrease bias during the editorial process, we employ the classic double-blind peer review process. Referees selected are professional scholars in a variety of disciplines including social and behavioral health sciences, health policy, epidemiology, psychology, sociology, and other areas relevant to health behavior research.

• • Upon receipt, a manuscript is assigned a reference number.
  • A copy of the numbered manuscript is electronically sent to a minimum of 3 referees and always a statistician either quantitative or qualitative depending on the manuscript research methods.
  • Referees are selected to match the manuscript with the referee’s area of expertise.
  • Referees evaluate the manuscript according to established criteria on an evaluation form.
  • The managing editor transmits reviewer evaluations and comments to the corresponding author, usually within 4 weeks.

• Research ethics policy (URL):

Ethical Oversight. American Journal of Health Behavior will follow the COPE protocol if there are concerns about ethical concerns regarding a submission, and the following protocols are required of all submissions involving human or animal research.

1. Human Subjects or Animal Approval Statement.
2. Where relevant, include human subjects or animal protection statements indicating institutional review and approval with document number, if possible, or statement of exempt status. More specifically, all studies involving humans should indicate that they meet the ethical standard outlines in Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 2000, and studies involving animals should indicate that they meet the National Research Council requirements on the Care and Use Laboratory Animals.
3. Plagiarism Prevention Process.
4. Prior to submission, all manuscripts are expected to have been checked for unattributed text via one of several automated software programs (eg, Grammarly, Plagiarisma, PaperRater, iThenticate, etc).

https://ajhb.org/submitting-manuscript/ethical-guidelines/

• Informed consent policy (URL):

https://ajhb.org/submitting-manuscript/ethical-guidelines/

 Where appropriate, and consistent with institutional review board requirements, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), European Union Directive 95/46/EC, and other rules specific to the location of where the research was conducted, include a clear indication that informed consent was obtained from all participants in the research.

• The process for handling corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern (URL):

Post Publication Discussions and Corrections. American Journal of Health Behavior includes the option for commentary regarding published articles by submitting a Letter to the Editor. The process for doing so is described on the journal website. In addition, if post-publication corrections are needed, please contact the Editor in Chief to determine what corrections can be made. There are no charges for correcting proofs, however, once the manuscript is posted online (post-publication) there is a fee for any changes, and the fee will depend on the type and extent of change needed.