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Author Guidelines and Manuscript Submission

The editorial staff of the Journal of Health and Human Services Administration (JHHSA) has created these guidelines to assist authors in preparing a manuscript for submission to the journal, or for publication if accepted.

Please review these guidelines in their entirety before submitting your manuscript, as this information will ensure that manuscripts receive full attention without delay.

General Guidelines

JHHSA publishes original theoretical and empirical research focused on management and administration in health care and human services organizations. JHHSA adopts a broad perspective of health care, human services, and management and administration. The journal encourages submissions that focus on traditional public and nonprofit health care organizations, including hospitals and health systems, nursing homes, ambulatory care or outpatient clinics, and private practices, and in a variety of public, private, or nonprofit human services agencies. In addition to these areas, the journal embraces a healthy communities model that includes five dimensions of health, including:

Authors writing on any of these topics should ensure that manuscripts are substantively focused on or provide implications for issues of management and administration.

Manuscripts should be written in a clear and concise manner accessible to a broad audience that may include academics, clinicians, and other practitioners from a number of different specializations. Given the focus on health and human services, some types of clinical or technical language may be necessary; authors should ensure that any technical language is explained in a way that a reader will understand.

JHHSA publishes research from authors in the United States and around the world. Authors writing about a specific country or case setting should make sure that their work demonstrates connections to the larger field and is broadly applicable.

Manuscript submissions are encouraged from both academics and practitioners, and collaborations that draw on both populations are especially welcome.

The editorial staff members of JHHSA take seriously ethical principles related to authoring and publishing and follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE’s) Code of Conduct. Please see JHHSA’s ethics guidelines for more information prior to submitting a manuscript.

Types of Articles

Research Articles

JHHSA publishes both theoretical and empirical research, and embraces methodological diversity including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Research articles should concretely improve our understanding of theory, practice, or both, and authors are encouraged to build upon past work in a manner that acknowledges the complex, interdisciplinary nature of health and human services functions. Empirical articles should follow standard conventions for structure (e.g., introduction, literature review, methods, findings, conclusion), while theory-focused articles may have a more flexible structure as appropriate to the topic. Research articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words in length, and should follow APA style guidelines.

Research Notes

Research notes are shorter articles that examine a new conceptual or theoretical application, present interesting or novel research findings, or make some other type of contribution to our knowledge of how health and human services organizations function. These types of articles are shorter and, though they do not need to follow the same format as standard research articles, should proceed in a similar manner with regard to theoretical support, understanding of methods and results (if relevant), and discussion of contributions to knowledge. Given the shorter length, clarity of writing and attention to language is especially important. Research notes should use the same APA Style guidelines as research articles, and should be between 4,000 and 5,000 words in length.

Emerging Scholars

JHHSA periodically publishes original research by doctoral or early career students. Students wishing to have their manuscript considered for the Emerging Scholars section will first engage in one-on-one developmental review and revisions with an editor or editorial board member prior to peer review, and manuscripts will then undergo the traditional full peer review process. Importantly, the selection process for the Emerging Scholars section is competitive, and not all submissions will be accepted. Those interested in submitting a manuscript for the Emerging Scholars section should contact both Drs. Hillary Knepper and Alexander Henderson (hknepper@pace.edu; alexander.henderson@liu.edu) via email, and include:

A decision will be made on the suitability of the manuscript for the Emerging Scholars section, and authors will be contacted with a decision and instruction for next steps, if accepted. Students are encouraged to work closely with faculty members at their college or university first before submitting a manuscript.

Points for Practitioners

All manuscripts must include three to five takeaways for practitioners that emerge clearly and directly from the article. These takeaways should be presented in the form of sentences (in bullet point list format) inserted just after the keywords and before the introduction. Authors must include these points with the initial manuscript submission.

Formatting a Manuscript for Review

Manuscripts submitted for review as standard research articles should be approximately 7,000 - 10,000 words long, and research notes should be between 4,000 - 5,000 words long (these amounts include the abstract, tables, figures, and references). Manuscripts should be double-spaced with standard fonts and margins (12-point, Times New Roman, 1 inch margins).

All manuscripts must be formatted according to American Psychological Association (APA) style guidelines, including in-text citations and references (please note that headers are modified from APA style as noted in the following section). More information on APA style can be found here: http://www.apastyle.org/

Authors should follow a consistent and clear system for formatting headers throughout the manuscript.

Tables, figures, and graphics should be inserted in the place they should appear in the text rather than as an appendix. Tables should be created in Microsoft Word (or other text editing software) rather than being inserted as a graphic or picture file. Figures should be created in Word or inserted as high quality pictures. The words 'table' and 'figure' should be lowercase when inserted as call outs, and capitalized in the title of the table or figure.

In-text notes are discouraged; if they are necessary, they should be inserted as footnotes, not as endnotes.

Manuscripts should include:

  1. Title
  2. Abstract (not more than 150 words)
  3. Keywords
  4. Points for Practitioners
  5. Text
  6. References
  7. Appendices or other end matter if needed

A title page should be submitted as a separate document and should include:

Funding information must include both the full name of all granting or supporting organizations, as well as corresponding grant numbers or other identifying information.

All author identifiers must be removed from the manuscript before submission. References to one or more authors may be retained, but text must refer to such works in the third person.

Submission implies a commitment by the authors to publish in the journal upon acceptance; manuscripts may not be submitted while under consideration by any other journal.

Manuscripts submitted for review with JHHSA may not be currently under consideration with another journal.

Electronic Submission

JHHSA uses Editorial Express for manuscript processing. Authors must first create an account and provide contact information via Editorial Express prior to submitting a manuscript. Authors can create their account and submit manuscripts by clicking the link below or copying and pasting the web address into a browser:

http://www.editorialexpress.com/jhhsa

Manuscripts and accompanying material submitted for review must be uploaded as PDF files.

Review Timeline

JHHSA strives to send manuscripts out for review within one week, and return a decision on submitted work within 5 weeks from acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript. Multiple rounds of revision and review may be necessary before a final decision can be returned.

Author Inquiries

General inquiries about manuscript status should be emailed to: jhhsa@spaef.org.

Questions regarding symposia or Emerging Scholars submissions should be directed to both Drs. Hillary Knepper and Alexander Henderson (hknepper@pace.edu; alexander.henderson@liu.edu).

Preparing Accepted Manuscripts for Publication

Authors submitting a manuscript for publication in JHHSA confirm that they are the corresponding/submitting author, that any co-authors are in agreement, and that JHHSA may retain email addresses for the purpose of communicating with authors about the article and/or future research opportunities. Please inform JHHSA immediately if any contact or affiliation details change. Upon acceptance of your manuscript for publication, JHHSA will contact authors using the email address used during the registration process. JHHSA does not retain copies of articles that have been declined for publication.

Final manuscripts accepted for publication should be submitted by email to the journal editor as a Microsoft Word file, and should follow APA style and citation guidelines. Margins should be set to 1 inch on all sides.

Note that all tables, graphs, figures, etc. must also fit within these margins. Insert figures into the body of the article. Please do not insert figures as a picture or object. If you must do so, please email the raw figure (in the file format in which it was originally created) as a separate file.

Include information for each author(s) full name(s), institutional affiliation, contact information, and a short biographical statement of up to 100 words for each author.

All authors must complete and return a publication contract. Contracts may be completed online at: https://jhhsa.spaef.org/contract