INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

ECOHEALTH is an international, peer reviewed journal focusing on issues, research and integration of knowledge at the interface between ecological and health sciences. The journal will present research and reviews drawing from the three complementary and overlapping areas of:

·         Integrated studies in ecology, health and sustainability (Integration of biophysical, social and health sciences;   Ecosystem approaches to health, equity and sustainability; Linking research and policy in ecology, health and sustainability; Socioecological determinants of health inequalities; Local and indigenous knowledge of human and ecosystem health; Transdisciplinary teaching and research linking ecology and health; Multi-stakeholder problem solving for health and sustainability)

·         Global change and human health (Global environmental degradation and human health; International trade and travel, and emerging infectious disease; Ecological perspectives on infectious and chronic disease; Integrated assessments of human, wildlife and ecosystem health; Interactions between built environments, land use change, agriculture, soil and water resources, and health; Relationships between development, environment and health; Population displacement stemming from environmental disasters)

•    Conservation Medicine (Anthropogenic change and drivers of disease emergence in terrestrial and marine ecosystems; Links between conservation and human health; Ecology of infectious and zoonotic diseases at different scales; Emerging infectious diseases affecting wildlife, domestic animals and plants in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems; Relationship between ecosystems, biodiversity and human health; Ecological health in terrestrial, freshwater & marine conservation)

Further information about ECOHEALTH will be available at www.ecohealth.net during December, 2003.

All submissions to this ECOHEALTH Supplement on Ecosystem Approaches to Human health should be directed no later than January 15^th, 2004 to the ECOHEALTH Editorial Office:

Dr. Margot Parkes, Managing Editor

ECOHEALTH, Editorial Office

John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii,

1960 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822-2319, HAWAII, USA

Email:  mparkes@hawaii.edu

Tel: +1-808-9565770, Fax: +1-808-9565506

The following instructions are for the submission of articles of original work for peer-review. The Managing Editor would also be pleased to receive suggestions for commentary, news and updates, book reviews and cover art.  Authors are invited to seek advice from the Editorial Office at any time. Authors who are not sure whether their manuscript is appropriate for ECOHEALTH may submit an abstract to the Editor for preliminary evaluation. Submission of an article to ECOHEALTH implies that the article is original and unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Submission of articles for peer review

Expert referees will review all articles in this journal and revisions may be recommended. The Editor will select all reviewers. The peer-review process for ECOHEALTH is double blind (both authors and reviewers are anonymous to each other).

Authors should submit their work electronically, including a covering letter and attachments. Authors should also submit one original hard copy of the manuscript text and artwork (illustrations, figures, maps etc) to the Editorial Office, along with copies of all files in an electronic form (CD or diskette). Authors must keep a copy of all documents relating to the manuscript for reference and safety. 

Manuscript specifications

Manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced, with wide margins, and formatted for standard letter size paper (8½ x 11 inches). All pages, including tables must be numbered. All artwork must be labeled with the author’s name and the figure number. The authors should clearly specify the theme (1, 2, 3 or 4) under which the paper is presented. All textual elements should begin flush left with no paragraph indents and two returns after every element, such as titles, headings, paragraphs, legends, etc. Ragged right margins are preferable to justified lines. Manuscripts will be returned to the author with a set of instructions if they are not submitted according to our style.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the following sequence:

Title page (Page 1)

Abstract (Page 2)

Text (General format: Introduction and purpose, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion)

Acknowledgements (if necessary)

References (begin on a separate page)

Tables and Boxes (each on a separate sheet)

Figures, Illustrations and Maps (each on a separate sheet)

List of Figures, Illustrations and Maps (double spaced on a separate sheet)

Title page: Page 1 of your manuscript is the Title Page, including 1. Title and subtitle of the paper; 2. A shortened version or running head (no more than 45 characters); 3. Word count; 4. Full names and affiliations for all authors; 5. Full mailing and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers of the author to whom correspondence and proofs should be sent.

Abstract: Page 2 of your manuscript is the abstract and keywords. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should state concisely the goals, methods, principle results and major conclusions of the paper. Incomplete and uninformative descriptions, such as "a new method of analysis was used," should not be used. Use of acronyms in the abstract is discouraged. Up to 6 key words should follow the abstract. If desired, in addition to submitting and English abstract,  you may also submit an extended version of your abstract (maximum 500 words) in either French or Spanish. This is not mandatory but aims at disseminating research findings to a wider international audience, which may not necessarily be fluent in English.

Text: Articles should not normally exceed 5000 words, although articles longer than 5000 words may be accepted on an occasional basis, if the topic requires this length of treatment. Where appropriate, authors should structure their article under the main headings of Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. Since the journal welcomes submissions from a variety of disciplines, and research and practice that crosses disciplinary boundaries, alternative structures will also be considered. Where necessary, please consult with the editorial office for guidance.

Citations: The ‘Author Date’ system should be used for reference citations in the text. List multiple citations by year and, within years, by alphabetical order. For example: (Bardach 1982; Memon 1982; Leonard 1989, 1990; Smit 1989a,b, McMichael et al. 1999). For citations of works by more than two authors, use the first author followed by ‘et al.’ All text citations must be included in the Reference list.

Footnotes: Notes which are in addition to references should be used sparingly. Include pertinent material directly in the text. If footnotes are essential, number them consecutively through the manuscript with superscript numerals. A footnote must appear on the bottom of the page on which it is first cited.   

References: The list of references in the Author Date style outlined below should begin on a separate page and must include a full list of literature cited, typed and double-spaced. List references alphabetically by the last name of the first author. If the first author has more than one publication, list references in alphabetical order of subsequent authors last names. If the first author shares the last name with another first author (Smith JM vs. Smith RB), alphabetize by initials. If you list more than one publication by the same author/group of authors, arrange publications by date, early to late. If you list more than one publication published in the same year by the same author/group of authors, use a, b, c, d, and so on to distinguish the publications.

Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of their references. All references must include:

-Author/editor last name plus initials (for six or fewer authors; if there are more than six authors, use "et al." after the sixth) or authoring agency,

-Year of publication,

-Full title of article or chapter (lower case),

-Title of journal (do not abbreviate journal titles) or book/proceedings italicized and in title case,

-City/state/country of publication: Name of publisher,

-Volume and inclusive page numbers,

-URL where available, with date accessed

-DOI reference (Digital Object Identifier), where relevant.

If you are uncertain what to include, please include all information.

Types of References:

Journal article:

McMichael AJ, Bolin B, Costanza R, Daily GC, Folke C, Lindahl-Kiessling K, et al. (1999). Globalization and the sustainability of human health. An ecological perspective. Bioscience 49:205–210.

Journal article with DOI  reference

Skelly C and Weinstein P. (2003). Pathogen survival trajectories: an eco-environmental approach to the modelling of human Campylobacteriosis ecology. Environmental Health Perspectives 111:19–28. doi:10.1289/ehp.5312 [Online 7 November 2002].

Articles/Chapters in edited books

Schaeffer DJ and Cox DK. (1992). Establishing ecosystem threshold criteria. In: Ecosystem Health: New Goals for Environmental Management. Costanza R, Norton G, and Haskell B. (eds) pp. 157–169. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Book

Aguirre AA, Ostfeld RS, Tabor GM, House C and Pearl MC. (2002). Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.

Conference Proceedings

Smit, B. (1989). Likely impact of climate change on Canadian agriculture. In: Coping with climate change. Topping JC Jr. (ed.) Proceedings of the Second North American Conference on Preparing for Climate Change: A Cooperative Approach. Climate Institute, Washington, DC, USA. pp. 197-202.

Web-based resource

Brown VA, Nicholson R, Stephenson P, Bennet K, Smith J. (2001). Grass Roots and Common Ground: Guidelines for Community-based Environmental Health Action, A Discussion Paper. University of Western Sydney, Regional Integrated Monitoring Centre Occasional Paper No. 2. Available: http://sites.uws.edu.au/research/rimc//grassroots_index.html [accessed 10 May 2003].

Tables: Place your tables after the Reference List. Number them consecutively with Arabic numerals and place each one on a separate page. All numbered tables must be referred to in the text. Provide a brief title above each table. Keep column headings and descriptive matter brief and do not use vertical rules between columns. Tables should not duplicate information in the text. Each table and figure must be cited in the text and its position indicated.

Figures, illustrations, photographs and maps: Figures may be from original artwork, photographs, graphs or charts. Number figures consecutively with Arabic numerals and indicate position in text on a separate line in boxed brackets e.g. [Figure 1 about here]. Include a list of Figures, Illustrations and Maps, double spaced on a separate sheet at the end of the manuscript.

Costs of Color illustrations. Authors are encouraged to include black and white photographs among their figures wherever these would help the reader to visualize the topic described in the text. Color can be used without charge for the electronic edition of the journal but will appear in the printed version of the journal at the author's expense. Estimated costs for color pages are $1150 for the first page and $575 for each additional page within the same article. These costs will be charged to the authors.

Submission of Illustrations: Please submit all illustrations electronically, since this is the format that will sent to peer-reviewers. While illustrations produced using standard presentation programs (Excel, PowerPoint, Freelance) are acceptable for the purposes of peer-review, they are NOT an acceptable electronic format for production and publication. We therefore strongly advise authors to adhere to the Guidelines for Electronically Produced Illustrations for Print outlined here. 

NB: If your paper is accepted for publication, you will be required to submit a hard copy of all Illustrations, printed on photographic (i.e. Kodak Laser) paper to the Editorial office. While Hard copies are preferred for production, electronically prepared figures may be used IF they meet the following specifications.

Guidelines for Electronically Produced Illustrations for Print

For production of the illustrations of accepted paper, the Springer Production Team requires electronically produced figures to be stored in EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format.  Most drawing programs (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, Deneba Canvas, CorelDraw) have a Save-As-EPS option in their Save dialog box. Other information about EPS can be found at the Adobe website.

General

• Send illustrations separately from the text (i.e. files should not be integrated with the text files).
• Always send printouts of all illustrations. On the back of hard copies of each figure, clearly identify the top of the figure/photograph; include the figure number and name(s) of the author(s).
• Unless the author has specified they wish to pay for color illustration, Color figures will be converted to grey scale 

Vector (line) Graphics

• Vector graphics exported from a drawing program should be stored in EPS format.
• Suitable drawing program: Adobe Illustrator. For simple line art the following drawing programs are also acceptable: Corel Draw, Freehand, Canvas.
• No rules narrower than .25 pt.
• No gray screens paler than 15% or darker than 60%.
• Screens meant to be differentiated from one another must differ by at least 15%.

Spreadsheet/Presentation Graphics

• Most presentation programs (Excel, PowerPoint, Freelance) produce data that cannot be stored in an EPS format. Therefore graphics produced by these programs cannot be used for print.

Halftone Illustrations

• Black & white and color illustrations should be saved in TIFF format.
• Illustrations should be created using Adobe Photoshop whenever possible.

Scans*

• Scanned reproductions of black and white photographs should be provided as 300 ppi TIFF files.
• Scanned color illustrations should be provided as TIFF files scanned at a minimum of 300 ppi with a 24-bit color depth.
• Line art should be provided as TIFF files at 600 ppi.

* We do prefer having the original art as our printers have drum scanners which allow for better reproduction of critical medical halftones.