How to format your references using the Public Health citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for 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

Neutze R. STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY. Snapshots of a protein quake. Science. 2015 Oct 23;350(6259):381.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hudson KL, Collins FS. Biospecimen policy: Family matters. Nature. 2013 Aug 8;500(7461):141–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kaufman TC, Severson DW, Robinson GE. The Anopheles genome and comparative insect genomics. Science. 2002 Oct 4;298(5591):97–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Koo HC, Kwon JH, Eom J, Chang J, Han SH, Johnson M. Control of spin precession in a spin-injected field effect transistor. Science. 2009 Sep 18;325(5947):1515–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hens HSLC. Performance Based Building Design 2. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2012.

An edited book

Micklin P, Aladin NV, Plotnikov I, editors. The Aral Sea: The Devastation and Partial Rehabilitation of a Great Lake. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. XII, 453 p. 78 illus., 31 illus. in color. (Springer Earth System Sciences; vol. 10178).

A chapter in an edited book

Deutsch M. Interdependence and Psychological Orientation. In: Deutsch M, editor. Morton Deutsch: A Pioneer in Developing Peace Psychology. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 105–29. (SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice).

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 Public Health.

Blog post

Fang J. A 15-Year-Old Builds a Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/15-year-old-builds-mind-controlled-robotic-arm/

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. Digital Television Transition: Preliminary Information on Initial Consumer Education Efforts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007 Sep. Report No.: GAO-07-1248T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Peterson K. Development of a facility-specific dietary training program for diet technicians [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2015.

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

GEORGE GENE GUSTINES; Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF. A New Character In Archie’s Town. New York Times. 2010 Apr 24;C2.

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	Public Health
Abbreviation	Public Health
ISSN (print)	0033-3506
ISSN (online)	1476-5616
Scope	General Medicine Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health