Publications

The American Journal of Human Biology is the official journal of the Human Biology Association and is published bimonthly online by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The Journal publishes peer-reviewed original research, theoretical articles and reviews, brief communications, and book reviews. The Journal also publishes abstracts and the program for the annual meeting of the Human Biology Association.

Series on Methods in Human Biology

AJHB is now accepting submissions for a new series of articles focused on methods.

Objective

To provide a forum for the dissemination of best-practices methods for collecting and analyzing biological information from humans in diverse research settings. Articles will review methods in a circumscribed domain with the goal of providing readers with information on the following: relevance to human biology research, range of methodological options, procedures for implementation, utility of various options to different research questions or contexts, challenges in implementation, sources of supplies and/or equipment, estimated costs of supplies/equipment, promising directions for future methodological development, key references on prior applications and/or validation.

These articles will serve as a resource for scholars interested in applying new methods to their research, a teaching/training guide for students, and an opportunity to present our perspective on human biology to the broader biology/medicine/ecology/public health community. Collectively, the articles will function as an alternative to a methods manual for our discipline, a resource that can be continuously updated to track the leading edge of the field, as well as provide a reliable place to turn for information on important, long-standing methods. Articles will be compiled into a virtual “methods handbook” that will provide easy access to all prior contributions to the series.

Articles will be peer-reviewed, and will be accepted from authors with recognized expertise in the implementation of the reviewed methods. It is not the intent of the series to publish methods validation papers. Manuscripts describing or validating new methods should continue to be submitted as original research articles or short reports. Any method that would be deemed as relevant to the scope of research published in AJHB will be considered as a potential topic of review for the series.

Frequency and timing

AJHB publishes six issues each year, and we will aim to publish three articles per year, in issues 1, 3, and 5 (Jan-Feb, May-Jun, Sep-Oct). Deadlines for having manuscripts through the proofing stage would be November 1, March 1, and July 1, respectively, with final manuscripts sent to production one month before those dates.

Selection of topics and authors

Submissions will be invited in order to ensure that topics are relevant to the goals of the series, that they are written by authors with an appropriate level of expertise, and to maintain a balanced flow of manuscripts. Initially, a list of potential topics and authors will be generated by the series editor, the AJHB editorial board, and by suggestions from the HBA membership. When the right combination of topic and author is identified, a submission will be “invited” to be part of the series.

Editorial/review process

Submissions will be peer-reviewed, but managed separately from the regular AJHB submission and review process. The series editor will receive manuscripts and manage correspondence with authors and reviewers. Final manuscripts will be forwarded to the AJHB production editor for copy editing, formatting, and publication.

Interested in submitting a manuscript? Have an idea for a topic you would like to see covered? Please email Gillian Bentley, series editor, at g.r.bentley@durham.ac.uk.