Author Guidelines

Submission

Submission of a manuscript for publication in Human Biology and Public Health implies that this work has not been and will not be published elsewhere in this form and length, except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or a symposium.
All submissions will undergo a first sighting by one of the editors, and when considered suitable, be subject to blind peer-review. Publication fee of a manuscript is € 475.00.

Manuscripts should be submitted in separate files: the text file (main text including tables) is accepted in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word (preferrably *.docx), or RTF document file format; graphs (numerical representation of data) should preferrably be uploaded in pdf format; images are accepted in svg, jpg, eps, and png file format; supplementary information (if needed), in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word (preferrably *.docx), or RTF document file format; large tables (tables that do not fit into usual portrait format) may be submitted as supplementary material in csv or excel format. Text should be single line spaced, use a 12-point font; employ italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses). Please activate line numbering. Manuscripts must be written in English.

All manuscripts will appear online and open access.

When you register for submitting your manuscript, make sure that the submission system recognizes you as "author". In case you are already registered e.g. solely as "reviewer", you need to update your profile. Click "view profile", thereafter click "roles", and then confirm your role as "author".

Authorship

All authors must have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. Authors must have revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content; and given final approval of the version to be published.

The text file of the manuscript

The text file of the manuscript should be presented in the following order:

Title page including
an informative title,
a running title (less than 50 characters),
the full name of the author/s and each author’s institutionally affiliation, ORCID
the postal address and email address of the corresponding author,
number of Figures

Abstract
The abstract should not exceed 250 words and contain the major keywords summarizing the article. Except for Short Notes the abstract should be structured including
Background
Objectives: A statement of the goal(s) of the research.
Sample and Methods: A brief description of the study design, subjects, data collection, and statistical or other analysis methods used.
Results: A brief description of the principal findings.
Conclusions: A brief statement of the conclusions drawn relative to the objectives of the study.

Keywords
Up to five keywords are needed

Take home message for students
A short and comprehensible take home message of less than 50 words

Conflict of Interest
Authors should provide a conflict of interest statement ("There are no conflicts of interest"). Submitting authors should ensure they act jointly with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission.

Main text
The main text should be structured in introduction, sample and methods, results, discussion, conclusion.
The length of the main text may range from approximately 2,500 to 6,000 words for Original Research Articles, and 1.500 words for Short Notes. Footnotes are not to be used except for tables and figures.

Methods
Authors are responsible for checking the license and obtaining the permission for all methods or tools used in the research. If permission was required, a statement confirming permission should be included in the Sample and Methods section.

Human Studies and Subjects
Manuscripts reporting on human participants require a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study or confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards. It should also state clearly in the text that all participants/ parents/guardians had given oral and/or signed written informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

Example: Sample collection and analyses were approved by the Ethics Committee of [] protocol number []. Written informed consent was given by all participants in accordance with institutional Human investigation committee guidelines in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki amended October 2013, after information about the procedures used in the experiments.

Participant anonymity should be preserved. Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent human subjects being recognized.

Acknowledgments
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. Material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

References
In text citations should follow the author-date method whereby the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998). Articles with one or two authors (Bogin & Rios, 2003) include all names in every in-text citation; articles with three, four, or more authors are abbreviated to the first author name plus et al. The complete reference list should appear alphabetically by name at the end of the paper. First names should be abbreviated.

Reference should be cited using citavi (DER Harvard style (author-date, english)), zotero (Elsevier-Harvard (with titles)), or Mendeley style.

A seperate BibTeX file (xxx.bib) should be added additionally to the reference list in the word file of the  main text.


Journal article
Duggleby, S. L./Jackson, A. A./Godfrey, K. M./Robinson, S. M./Inskip, H. M. (2009). Cut-off points for anthropometric indices of adiposity: differential classification in a large population of young women. The British Journal of Nutrition 101 (3), 424–430. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114508012245.

Book edition
Eveleth, P. B./Tanner, J. M. (1990). Worldwide variation in human growth. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Contribution to an edited volume

Lukacs, J. R. (1989). Dental paleopathology: methods for reconstructing dietary patterns. In: M. Y. İşcan/K. A. R. Kennedy (Eds.). Reconstruction of life from the skeleton. New York, Alan R. Liss, 261–286.

Website
WHO (2006). WHO child growth standards: length/height-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass index-for-age: methods and development. Available online at https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/924154693X (accessed 9/25/2021).

A list of figures with legends should be added at the end of the main text file.

The Figure files of the manuscript
The figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Levels of statistical significance and measures of effect size need to be included. Define any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units mentioned. Figures submitted in color may be reproduced in color online free of charge. Please note, however, that graphs (numerical representation of data) should be black and white so that they can be printed legibly by a reader with a black and white printer.

Graphs should preferrably be uploaded as a separate pdf file. All other Figures are accepted as separate svg, jpg, eps, and png files.

Figures should have at least 800 dpi when producing line drawings, photographs a minimum of 300 dpi. All other graphics should have a resolution of at least 500 dpi. Please embed the fonts in all eps-files.

Tables are part of the main text
Each table must be included in the main text of the manuscript, except for large tables that do not fit into usual portrait format. Tables should not duplicate information contained in the text. Headers should be concise but comprehensive – the table, its headers, and its footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. Abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols should be avoided; the symbols *, **, *** etc. should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD should be identified in the headings.
If large material is to be presented, it should be loaded as supplementary information as txt-, cvs-, xls-files.

Supplementary Information
Supplementary information is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. and need a link in the text.

Style Points

  • Abbreviations: In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader. Initially, use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only. When using more than 4 abbreviations, provide a list of abbreviations after the title page.
  • Units of measurement: Measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units.
  • Numbers: Numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit: age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 infants and 9 mothers).
  • Trade Names: Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names.

Revised articles

The responsible editor decides on the selection of professionally suitable reviewers for blind reviewing.

Once your manuscript has come back from the reviewers you should revise it in accordance with the reviewer comments. Address all points raised by the editor and the reviewers. In a response letter, you should describe the major changes to your manuscript followed by point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments. In case you disagree, provide a scientific rebuttal to any comments you disagree with. Together with the revised manuscript, upload an additional file showing the major revisions in the text, either with a different color text, or by highlighting the changes. Return the revised manuscripts and the response letter.

Accepted Articles
All accepted manuscripts are subject to editing. Authors must give final approval of changes prior to publication. All manuscripts will appear online and open access.

Authors approve that metadata are transferred to CrossRef. Articles are transferred and archived at Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) and PMC.

Open access fee of € 475.00 is due after acceptance prior to publication, and shall be paid to

Human Biology and Public Health
IBAN DE94 2105 0170 1003 7820 16
BIC NOLADE21KIE

Proof reading
The corresponding author will receive a page proof as PDF file. This page proof has to be checked within three working days. In cases where the author is prevented from making corrections he should appoint a representative to check the proofs. If the page proofs are not returned in time, the paper will be published uncorrected. Only typesetting errors or small technical changes can be made, for further corrections the authors will be charged.

As part of the journal’s commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, the journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript.