How to format your references using the American Journal of Public Health citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Journal of Public Health. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Kearns DB. Microbiology. Bright insight into bacterial gliding. Science. 2007;315(5813):773-774.

A journal article with 2 authors

Simon J, Greiner M. Condensed-matter physics: a duo of graphene mimics. Nature. 2012;483(7389):282-284.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zeng GM, Wu LA, Xing HJ. Symmetry restoration and quantumness reestablishment. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6377.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

El Albani A, Bengtson S, Canfield DE, et al. Large colonial organisms with coordinated growth in oxygenated environments 2.1 Gyr ago. Nature. 2010;466(7302):100-104.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Seagal ZM, Surnina OM. Ultrasonic Topographical and Pathotopographical Anatomy. John Wiley &;#38; Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Fusiello A, Murino V, Cucchiara R, eds. Computer Vision – ECCV 2012. Workshops and Demonstrations: Florence, Italy, October 7-13, 2012, Proceedings, Part III. Vol 7585. Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Li D, Winsborough W, Winslett M, Hasan R. Database Issues in Trust Management and Trust Negotiation. In: Gertz M, Jajodia S, eds. Handbook of Database Security: Applications and Trends. Springer US; 2008:73-113.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for American Journal of Public Health.

Blog post

Evans K. Study Finds No Proof Fitness Trackers Help With Weight Loss. IFLScience. September 21, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-finds-no-proof-fitness-trackers-help-with-weight-loss/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. Pipeline Safety: New Risk Assessment Program Could Help Evaluate Inspection Cycle. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Cuthbertson TH. The Fool’s Replies: Toward a Poetics of Folly in Shakespeare’s Comedies. Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University; 2014.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Crow K. On the West Side, Who Will Pay to Make Room for Green? New York Times. December 3, 2000:1410.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	American Journal of Public Health
Abbreviation	Am. J. Public Health
ISSN (print)	0090-0036
ISSN (online)	1541-0048
Scope	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health