NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Please read the guidelines and then visit the New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy submission site to submit your paper. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. 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.

Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of New Solutions will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 5.3 below.

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 the Journal 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 please note that New Solutions does accept submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
 

1. What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper

2. Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
2.7 Clinical trials
2.8 Reporting guidelines
2.9 Research data

3. Preparing your manuscript
3.1 Formatting
3.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
3.3 Identifiable information
3.4 Supplemental material
3.5 Reference style
3.6 English language editing services

4. Submitting your manuscript
4.1 ORCID
4.2 Information required for completing your submission
4.3 Permissions

5. Publishing policies
5.1 Publication ethics
5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
5.3 Open access and author archiving

6. On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article

7. Further information
7.1 Appealing the publication decision        

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to New Solutions, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article types

New Solutions is a journal of policy. All article types are expected to have substantial policy discussion.

• Comment and Controversy – These are original opinion pieces that provide more substantial discussion than editorials. Generally limited to 15 – 20 double-spaced pages, but may be longer depending on topic content and editor’s perception of the value of additional information. Please note Sage's policy confirms that commentaries will be sent for peer review.  If the commentary is on an article previously published in New Solutions, it will be sent to the original author for a rebuttal/response.
• Feature Articles – Original research papers that address environmental / occupational health policy. Scientific studies submitted for this section should include substantial policy discussion relating findings to policies supported by those findings.  New Solutions encourages submission of studies that have used qualitative and mixed-methods research designs, as well as community-based participatory research. In addition, policy-oriented epidemiology, exposure assessment, industrial hygiene and other quantitative studies are encouraged in this section. These manuscripts undergo full peer-review. Generally limited to 15 – 20 double-spaced pages but may be longer depending on topic content and editor’s perception of the value of additional information.
• Scientific Solutions – This section is for original papers that address any of the following options: 1) Innovative scientific research methods and approaches that are new developments or have rarely been applied to occupational and environmental health concerns and can help shape new health policy directions; 2) Discussions about inappropriate application of research designs that lead to information that will distort the policies necessary to prevent occupational and environmental morbidities and premature mortality; 3) Discussions of inherent bias in particular research designs/approaches and aspects of science policy with regard to environmental/occupational health policy; 4) Discussions of science policy – either critiquing policy that ends up disadvantaging those suffering from workplace and environmental hazardous exposures, or presentation of necessary changes in science policy to improve public health measures to prevent morbidities and premature mortality. These manuscripts will undergo full peer-review. Generally limited to 15 – 20 double-spaced pages, but may be longer depending on topic content and editor’s perception of the value of additional information.
• Movement Solutions – Original papers that provide discussions of social movement debates and practices addressing environmental and occupational health policy needs. These could present movement history, specific projects/programs that have been operated within a movement context to improve occupational and environmental health and health policies, or studies conducted in collaboration with or by movement actors. These undergo full peer-review, but may include no or few references. Generally limited to 15 – 20 double-spaced pages, but may be longer depending on topic content and editor’s perception of the value of additional information.
• Documents – Reports and other documents published elsewhere (often previously published in non-indexed literature) but warrant republication in New Solutions. These can include papers that were published in another publication, and also historical articles that have strong bearing on current efforts. Generally, no longer than 10 – 15 pages.
• Voices – Interviews with workers, activists, advocates, researchers, and policymakers, with relevance to occupational and environmental health policy and politics. Generally limited to 15 – 20 double-spaced pages, but may be longer depending on topic content and editor’s perception of the value of additional information. Voices submissions are not peer reviewed.
• Letter to the Editor
• Guest Editorial

A note on methods: As noted above, New Solutions is strongly supportive of qualitative and mixed methods research, and we encourage policy oriented quantitative research as well. Submissions should reflect a strong understanding of the capabilities and limits of whichever methods the authors choose. If quantitative methods are chosen, New Solutions may decide not to publish findings that don't achieve statistical significance if we believe that the lack of statistical significance reflects a methodological flaw rather than a finding about the real world. An example would be a finding of no statistically significant difference between an exposure and a control group when the sample size is so small it lacks the statistical power to detect anything other than a very large difference. Another example would be insufficient difference between groups in the exposure of interest. An example of this would be a comparison between a slightly exposed group and a non-exposed group. In such a case, lack of significance would not tell us whether the exposure has an effect or not. It would tell us only that the groups were constructed in such a way as to make finding significance extremely unlikely (much less than 1 in 20) even if the exposure has a real effect. Conversely, New Solutions might decide that the lack of statistical significance in a robust study with a large sample size and well defined exposure and control groups is strong evidence that the exposure in question may not have an effect. Such a finding may be worth publishing precisely due to its lack of statistical significance. Finally, New Solutions may decide that a statistically significant finding is not worth publishing for one of several reasons, including but not limited to:

1. The methods were biased toward a positive finding
2. The result is statistically significant, due to a large sample size, but so small in magnitude as not to be necessarily meaningful in the real world (In such a case, rather than rejection, the manuscript might be sent back to the authors to make a stronger case for the importance of their findings.)
3. The result is so well established in the published literature that it is unclear why the authors would bother to test the hypothesis again.

In sum, neither statistical significance nor lack of statistical significance will, by itself, determine whether a manuscript is publishable. The methods used will be scrutinized for appropriateness and interpretation of results will be examined for understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the methods used.

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

2.1 Peer review policy

New Solutions adheres to a rigorous double-anonymized reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.

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).

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

2.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
3. Approved the version to be published,
4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

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. Any acknowledgements or explanations to readers regarding funding and other potential or actual conflicts of interest should be in a section with the heading Acknowledgements that follows the end of the text and precedes the Notes and References. For example:

Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your paper.

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.

2.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.4 Funding

New Solutions 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

It is the policy of New Solutions 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. The Journal 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

New Solutions 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, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
• Cite this data in your research

Peer reviewers may be asked to peer review the research data prior to publication.

• Peer reviewers may be asked to assess compliance with the research data policy
• Peer reviewers may be asked to assess research data files

If you need to anonymize your research data for peer review, please refer to our Research Data Sharing FAQs for guidance.

3. Preparing your manuscript for submission

3.1 Formatting

The preferred document format is Microsoft Word. The paper margins should be set at 1 inch (2,54 cm) all around. Paragraphs should be indented 0.25 inches (0,63 cm). The text should be double-spaced throughout, including offset quotes and references.

Abstract and Key words

The abstract is limited to 150 words and should be done in paragraph format and not by sections of the paper as many scientific journals require these days. A list of 3-5 key words should follow the abstract.

Headings

First-Level heading is in bold

Second-level heading is in italics

The following paragraph is indented

Third-level heading is in italics. The paragraph continues without any inserted space or line.

Notes

Notes are to be kept to a minimum. Notes are cited and listed separately from References and are found in a separate section. Notes should be cited with a superscript lower case letter a as shown. The notes should be listed at the end of the text just before the references, with a Heading Notes. The notes should be listed alphabetically in the order of appearance, with lower case letter followed by a period (a., b., etc.).

Review the Journal's full formatting guidelines here.

3.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

Artwork, illustrations, pictures, graphs, figures and/or tables should be placed in the body of the manuscript at the point where the author would like the reader to encounter it.

3.3 Identifiable information

Where a journal uses double-anonymized peer review, authors are required to submit:

1. A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymised. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
2. A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymised material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.

See the Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For specifically requested color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

3.4 Supplemental material

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.

3.5 Reference style

Review the Journal's full formatting and reference guidelines here.

In-Text Citations: Citations should be numbered with a superscript numeral ¹ following the text requiring the citation. If the citation comes at the end of the sentence, the citation number should be placed after the end of sentence punctuation mark, as shown below. Three or more citations in consecutive order should list the first and last with a dash in between (i.e. ^3-7). If a string of 3 or more citations is not in consecutive order, they should be separated by commas (i.e. ^{3-7, 9, 11}).

Examples:

• Togo ⁴⁷ argues that, at least in theory, this cannot be applied.
• Labor organizations are building momentum for shaping policy changes. ²⁹
• Smith and Jones^5,6 have shown that worker training has been effective in these circumstances.
• Multiple studies have shown similar results. ^{3-8, 11}

3.6 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.

4. Submitting your manuscript

New Solutions is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/new to login and submit your article online.

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.

4.1 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.

4.2 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).

4.3 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.

5. Publishing Policies

5.1 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.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

New Solutions 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.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

5.2 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 license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and license 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.

5.3 Open access and author archiving

New Solutions 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.

6. On acceptance and publication           

6.1 Sage Production

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.

6.2 Online First publication

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.

6.4 Promoting your 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.

7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the New Solutions editorial office as follows:

Editor-in-Chief: Darius D. Sivin, PhD

Email: newsoleditor@gmail.com

Phone: 734-845-6080

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