Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion
The Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion (JPHP) is dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge and research in the field of prevention science, social justice, and health and wellness promotion. The focus of JPHP is on all aspects of prevention and health promotion in psychology and related disciplines and includes scholarship related to environmental and systems change, and public policy development. This mission is central to APA’s Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP) and the Prevention Section of SCP, who serve as joint partners with Sage in publishing the Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion. The vision of the editorial team of JPHP includes promoting interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary scholarship that moves beyond the traditional boundaries of prevention psychology and engages other social sciences, health sciences, humanities, and beyond. Further, we are committed to promoting publications and manuscript submissions that thoughtfully engage in issues pertaining to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice.
| Sally M. Hage | Springfield College, USA |
| Roberto Abreu | The University of Florida, USA |
| Lisa De La Rue | University of San Francisco, USA |
| Maureen E. Kenny | Boston College, USA |
| G. Anne Bogat | Michigan State University, USA |
| Kerry M. Cannity | Seton Hall University, USA |
| Tracy J. Cohn | Radford University / Clinical Practice, USA |
| Robert K. Conyne | University of Cincinnati, USA |
| Sarah Cronin | Bemidji State University, USA |
| Colleen Eddy | University of Pittsburgh, USA |
| Ryan E. Flinn | University of North Dakota, USA |
| Tabitha Grier-Reed | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Dina von Heimburg | Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway |
| Ivy K. Ho | University of Massachusetts - Lowell, USA |
| Moshe Israelashvili | Tel Aviv University, Israel |
| LB Klein | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Christopher T. H. Liang | Lehigh University, USA |
| Buffie Longmire-Avital | Elon University, USA |
| Meredith R. Maroney | University of Calgary, Canada |
| Mark Newmeyer | Concordia University, USA |
| Nwakaego A. Nmezi | MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, USA |
| Pamela Orpinas | University of Georgia, USA |
| Isaac Prilleltensky | University of Miami, USA |
| Julia Roncoroni | University of Denver, USA |
| Michael P. Scarpa | Independent Researcher, USA |
| Jenelle Shanley | Pacific University, USA |
| Hanna Suh | National Institute of Education, Singapore |
| Marty Swanbrow Becker | Florida State University, USA |
| Carolyn Tucker | University of Florida, USA |
| Sara Whitcomb | University of Massachusetts, USA |
| Tiffany R. Williams | Tennesee State University, USA |
| Xiang Zhou | Purdue University, USA |
| Adrian Castro | Springfield College, USA |
| Danielle A. Farrar | Springfield College, USA |
| Alexander Nicholas Lerner | Springfield College, USA |
| Laurie Miller | Springfield College, USA |
| Erin Ayala | Premier Sport Psychology, USA |
| Maria Del Pilar Grazioso | Universidad de Valle de Guatemala, Guatelama |
| Sean DeMartino | Community Services Institute, USA |
| Melissa M. Ertl | University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA |
| Dorothy Espelage | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA |
| Lawrence Gerstein | Ball State University, USA |
| Lisa Goodman | Boston College, USA |
| Keith C. Herman | University of Missouri, USA |
| Melissa K. Holt | Boston University, USA |
| Arthur Horne | University of Georgia, USA |
| Betty Lai | Boston College, USA |
| Belle Liang | Boston College, USA |
| Lilyana Ortega | Colorado State University, USA |
| Paula Quatromoni | Boston University, USA |
| John L. Romano | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Elizabeth Vera | Loyola University Chicago, USA |
| John Westefeld | University of Iowa, USA |
| Sara Whitcomb | University of Massachusetts, USA |
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion submission site (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jphp) to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion (JPHP) will be reviewed. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
The Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion publishes several types of conceptual and empirical articles related to the fields of prevention and health promotion. Manuscripts on all topics relevant to psychology and related fields, such as public health and social work, are welcome and will be considered. These manuscripts should be no more than 35 pages in length (including references, tables, and figures). Submissions should include an abstract up to 250 words, and up to five keywords. For manuscripts that describe mixed-methods studies, qualitative studies, multi-study instrument development, and the like that may require more pages may be granted additional manuscript space.
JPHP recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
1. What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
Before submitting your manuscript to JPHP, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
1.2 Article types
We invite submissions from a breadth of fields, including but not limited to psychology, community psychology, addictions, health, health education, health promotion, multiculturalism, social justice, medicine, public health, public policy, school counselling, college counselling, school psychology, social work, epidemiology, aging, career, and wellness. The focus of JPHP is on empirical research (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods), theoretical and conceptual articles, in-depth reviews of the research and literature, clinical case studies, and book reviews.
Addition of Brief Report as one type of manuscript that we invite authors to submit. See guidelines below.
In addition to full-length manuscripts, the journal will consider brief reports. The brief reports format may be appropriate for empirically sound studies that are limited in scope, reports of preliminary findings that need further replication, or replications and extensions of prior published work.
Authors should indicate in the cover letter that they wish to have their manuscript considered as a brief report, and they must agree not to submit the full report to another journal.
The brief report should give a clear, condensed summary of the procedure of the study and as full an account of the results as space permits.
Brief reports are generally 20–25 pages in total length (including cover page, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures) and must follow the same format requirements as full length manuscripts.
1.3 Writing your paper
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online
2. Editorial policies
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
2.2 Authorship
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
2.3 Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.4 Funding
JPHP requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
JPHP encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway
It is the policy of JPHP to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. JPHP requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants
2.7 Clinical trials
JPHP conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
2.8 Reporting guidelines
The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.
Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives
2.9. Research Data
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
3. Publishing Policies
3.1 Publication ethics
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway
3.1.1 Plagiarism
JPHP and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in JPHP and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that JPHP may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
3.1.3 Biases
Authors are advised to use language that is free from sexist, racist, or ethnic bias; heterosexism; bias toward people with disabilities; ageism; and other kinds of biases. Use of his/her is not recommended. Authors should use gender neutral terminology whenever appropriate.
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
Manuscripts should be submitted as Microsoft Word documetns. They should be double-spaced and formatted for 8.5 x 11 paper, and be free of any comments or track changes. They should not be converted to PDF format. Word templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of the Sage Author Gateway.
When submitting manuscripts, authors should be sure to remove any identifying information in the manuscript for a proper masked review. This includes removing names, professional affiliations, and references to specific geographic locations. In addition, authors should remove any reference to institutional affiliations. For example, the specific name of the institution granting IRB approval, or the name of a collaborating agency where data were collected, should not appear in the submission. Authors should also remove any citations, along with the corresponding references, to manuscripts that have not yet been published (i.e., “in press” or “under review”). Submitting authors can enter a placeholder (e.g., “Citation removed for masked peer review, in press”) for these citations. However, no placeholder should be included in the references. Authors do not need to remove citations or references for articles they have authored that have already been published. Authors should ensure that there is no other context provided in the paper that could help the reader identify who they are.
JPHP recommends that authors follow the Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS–REC) formulated by the APA Board of Scientific Affairs Working Group for Journal Reporting Guidelines for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Justice in Psychological Science.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the 7th edition).
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.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file [OR] the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
5. Submitting your manuscript
JPHP is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscript Central. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jphp to login or create an account and submit your article online. Authors are required to submit a cover letter with their manuscript. The cover letter should address the relevance of the submitted manuscript to the scope of JPHP, and a statement about submitting your original work: that the author(s) have the rights in the work, and that they have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by them; that they are submitting the work for first publication in JPHP and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
5.1 ORCID
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
5.3 Permissions
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, Sage is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.
7. Further information
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to JPHP editorial office as follows:
Sally M. Hage, Ph.D.
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com.