Submissions
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
- Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
- The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
- The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
- This study was approved, exempted, or did not require review by an Institutional Review Board.
- The author(s) report no conflict of interest, or have disclosed a conflict of interest in the Comments to the Editor section.
Articles
Original Articles report empirical findings, applied research, or evaluations relevant to the special issue theme. Submissions must demonstrate methodological rigor, relevance to family and community health, and clear implications for practice or policy. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches and community-engaged scholarship.
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Manuscripts are subject to blind peer review by two qualified reviewers.
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Submissions must follow all formatting and length requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
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Articles selected for publication demonstrate originality, clarity, and alignment with the journal’s thematic focus.
Essays
Invited Essays are commissioned by the editorial team to provide reflections, thought pieces, or practical insights related to the special issue theme. These may include contributions from community leaders, policymakers, advocates, or practitioners, especially those representing lived experience or underrepresented perspectives.
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Essays are peer reviewed and are subject to editorial review and approval.
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While less formal in structure than research articles, essays should be well-organized, grounded in evidence or experience, and clearly contribute to the issue’s theme.
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Authors are selected and invited at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Editor.
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Essays do not exceed 2,500 words.
Editorials
Each issue begins with an Editorial that provides thematic framing, synthesizes major insights from the included works, and reflects on implications for future research, policy, or practice. Editorials are typically authored by the editorial team or invited senior scholars and serve to contextualize the special issue within broader scholarly and social contexts.
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Editorials are not subject to peer review and are curated by the editors.
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They serve to highlight innovations, tensions, or emerging directions surfaced across the contributions.
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Editorials do not exceed 2,000 words.
Copyright Notice
The Duvall Journal of Family and Community Health is an open-access journal. Upon publication, authors retain the copyright to their work and grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish, archive, and disseminate the article in any format or medium.
All articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
