Annals Call for Papers, Special Section on Health Disparities

Annals of Behavioral Medicine 

Call for Papers

Series of Special Sections on Understanding and Minimizing Social and Behavioral Aspects of Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities

The composition of the U.S. is becoming more demographically diverse, particularly in the number of people of color (e.g., Macera, Armstead, & Anderson, 2000). These changes in population demographics have far-reaching implications for research, practice and policy, as well as the future of behavioral medicine (Whitfield, 2002; Yali & Revenson, 2004). Annals of Behavioral Medicine is committed to publishing excellent research in health disparities. Toward this end, the journal is inviting submissions as part of a series of special sections focused on racial/ethnic health disparities. The journal aims to attract a broad set of manuscripts on a variety of disease conditions, intervention modalities, and risk/protective factor(s). 

Articles should use one of the following questions as their underlying theoretical framework:

1. How do psychosocial and cultural contexts serve as or moderate risks (e.g., stress, racism/discrimination, poor coping) or protective factors (e.g., social support, healthy diet, religiosity, active lifestyle) to maintaining or reducing health disparities?
2. What kinds of psychosocial and cultural variables mediate the relationship between race/ethnicity and health? What socio-demographic characteristics might help to elucidate our understanding of racial/ethnic health disparities (e.g., gender, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation) and in what ways?
3. What types of behavioral and psychosocial interventions can help to reduce health disparities? 

Editorial Process

Letters of intent (LOIs) for the second special section are requested by July 26, 2011. To submit a letter of intent, please use the template that can be found at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17267366/Annals_%20LOI.pdf. 

LOIs should include the following sections:

1. Rationale of how the manuscript complements and extends prior and current work on health disparities, and how it will contribute to theory, policy or practice
2. Specific hypotheses or research questions 
3. Research methods, including sample definition and selection procedures, research design, intervention design (if applicable), and key constructs
4. Central findings that address the major research questions. If the study involves statistical analyses, statistical analysis techniques and statistical findings supporting the research questions must be presented. If the study involves a qualitative analysis (e.g., narrative analysis, focus groups, discourse analysis), the methods used for analyzing the data should be described and summary findings should be presented (not individual quotations). 
5. Assurance that that all data to be analyzed for this manuscript have been collected at the time of this submission.

Sections 1-4 of the LOI should fit into the existing text boxes. Title the LOI – [Your last name] LOI Round 2. 
Once the LOI is competed and saved, please send it to the Senior Editor of the Special Sections, Dr. Keith Whitfield at kwhit1@duke.edu.

LOIs will be evaluated by the special section editors. Manuscripts should not only document health disparities, but also examine mechanisms that could explain the disparity. Although between-group studies (i.e., comparing one or more races/ethnicities) often are presented as evidence for health disparities, within-group studies on a particular racial/ethnic group that experiences significant disparities are also welcome. Both intervention and non-intervention studies are invited. 

Proposed manuscripts that pass the first stage of review will be invited for full manuscript submission and peer review. Manuscripts are due by December 1, 2011. The journal is committed to devoting substantial journal space to this topic throughout future issues.

Special Section Editors:
Laura M. Bogart, Ph.D., Harvard University
Tracey A. Revenson, Ph.D., Graduate Center, City University of New York
Keith E. Whitfield, Ph.D., Duke University 

References
Macera, C.A., Armstead, C.A., & Anderson, N.B, (2001). Sociocultural influences on health. In In A. Baum, T.A. Revenson, & J.E. Singer, (Eds.), Handbook of Health Psychology (pp.427-440). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Whitfield, K.E., Weidner, G. Clark, R., & Anderson, N.B. (2002). Sociodemographic diversity and behavioral medicine. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70(3), 463-481.
Yali, A.M., & Revenson, T.A. (2004). How changes in population demographics will impact Health Psychology: Incorporating a broader notion of cultural competence into the field. Health Psychology, 23 (2), 147-155.