Health Affairs

Description

Health Affairs is the leading journal of health policy thought and research. The peer-reviewed journal was founded in 1981 under the aegis of Project HOPE, a nonprofit international health education organization. Health Affairs explores health policy issues of current concern in both domestic and international spheres.

"For more than 20 years, Health Affairs has been a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in medicine, health care, and health care policy." — Washington Post

Frequency

Health Affairs in published monthly. Online peer-reviewed papers of a timely nature are published weekly on average as Web First papers and are then included in the next available print issue.

Articles and Pages

Health Affairs published 337 articles in 2009. Pages published totaled 2,945.

How to Access Our Content

Every article Health Affairs has ever published is available online at www.healthaffairs.org. Subscribers have access to all journal content. The full twenty-eight-year article archive is online and fully searchable All readers have free access to all journal articles three years old or older; and all Health Affairs Blog content. E-mail alerts and RSS feeds are available. You can also follow Health Affairs on Twitter.

Health Affairs' Web site is maintained in conjunction with Stanford University's HighWire Press.

Health Affairs is an original signatory to the Washington, D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science.

Subscriptions

Health Affairs is available by subscription to individuals and site-wide to libraries and institutions. National and Global site licenses are also available to institutions. See Subscription for more information.

Editor-in-Chief Susan Dentzer
Executive Editor Donald E. Metz
Executive Publisher Jane Hiebert-White
Founding Editor John K. Iglehart

Authors

Health Affairs authors include top scholars, policymakers, and health care industry leaders. We also welcome submissions from those who do not typically write for peer-reviewed journals.

Submissions

Health Affairs receives more than 1,000 manuscripts annually.

• Each paper is reviewed by the editors for timeliness and relevance to the journal's objectives. About 40% of these submissions are selected for external review.
• For papers that are not selected for external review, the journal notifies authors within two to three weeks of submission.
• For papers that are selected for external review, authors can expect to wait about two to three months from the date of submission until notification of the journal's decision.
• For papers that are selected for revision, the length of time between the revision request and publication will vary widely (from four weeks to several months) depending on the extent of revision required, the need for additional review and revision, whether the bound volume or on our Web site, etc.

Our acceptance rate for unsolicited papers is currently 10–15 percent. See more information on how to submit a paper.

Circulation

10,000 domestic and international subscribers. Readership: Three readers per issue copy (Beta Research Corp. independent survey) or 30,000 readers per printed copy. For subscription prices and ordering procedure, see Subscribe.

Web Site Traffic

Pageviews per month average 1.9 million as of December 2009. Annual page views total 21.5 million. Number of user sessions average 4.4 million per year. Most-read papers reach 90,000-140,000 pageviews each.

Policy Impact

Health Affairs' articles were cited 46 times in congressional testimony in 2009. A paper published in Health Affairs served as the basis for the Elimination on Neglected Diseases (END) amendment to the FDA Revitalization Act, which was signed into law on September 27, 2007. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) sponsored the amendment after learning about the article in Health Affairs.

If you want to follow along or participate in the health care debate, "it's time to renew your subscription to the indispensable journal, Health Affairs." — Washington Post

Eigenfactor.org

Health Affairs is rated number one in cost-effectiveness among scholarly periodicals in the field of health policy and services.

• Impact Factor for 2008: 3.004
• Health Care Sciences and Services: 3/62
• Health Policy & Services: 2/41

Press Citations

Health Affairs is frequently cited by national media, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, network television and radio, and NPR. The January 12, 2005, Washington Post cited Health Affairs as "the bible of health policy."

Policy Reach

Health Affairs is health policymakers' most frequently read journal and is consulted by 55% of staff members on U.S. congressional committees of jurisdiction in health—ahead of JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine, which are read by 17% and 10% of staff members, respectively (independent survey by the Center for Studying Health System Change).

Readership

Health Affairs readers include government health leaders (local, national, and international); decisionmakers at hospitals, insurance companies, and other health care industries; researchers and academics in economics, law, public health, sociology, health administration, medicine, nursing, and political science; advocates; consultants; investment analysts; reporters; and students.

Topics Covered

Health Affairs is a multidisciplinary journal covering a wide range of health issues. Topics covered include: access to care, health spending, quality, Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug coverage and costs, physician practice, nursing trends, mental health, malpractice and health law, insurance reform, hospitals, global health, and disparities in health care, and more. To view a complete list of topics, see Topic Collections.

Inside the Journal

Health Affairs is divided into the following major sections:

• Feature articles: New proposals, original research, and analysis of timely health policy issues
• Report From The Field: High-level journalistic article that explores a timely health policy topic
• Entry Point: A timely report on relevant health policy legislation and policymaking activity.
• Viewpoint: Opinions and proposals for change
• Interviews: Conversations with leaders in government and the private sector
• Narrative Matters: Personal stories about the health care system that highlight policy issues of concern, published with support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• TechWatch: Focus on medical technologies and their implications, published with support of the Blue Shield of California Foundation
• DataWatch: Data-driven analysis and original research
• GrantWatch: A review of recently awarded foundation grants and grant outcomes, with regular essays or special reports about health philanthropy
• Book Reviews
• Letters to the Editor: Lively discussion of issues raised in Health Affairs papers

Thematic Issues

Health Affairs publishes both thematic and "variety" issues every year. Thematic issues are devoted to in-depth exploration of a key topic surrounding health and health care.

Web Firsts

Online papers are published weekly, on average, as Web First papers at www.healthaffairs.org. Each Web First paper is published in the first available print issue following Web publication. Web First papers are subject to the same peer review, evaluation, and editing as any other paper published by Health Affairs. They are indexed in the literature at time of posting.

Health Affairs Blog

The Health Affairs blog provides opportunities for a more inclusive and interactive health policy dialogue via timely commentary and analysis. Original invited and staff-written posts are vetted and posted by the editors of Health Affairs. These posts are not externally peer-reviewed, but they do link to the original peer-reviewed journal articles where appropriate. We welcome relevant comments from readers using their real names. Health Affairs Blog content is copyrighted and licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Indexes/Abstracts

Health Affairs is indexed and/or abstracted in PUBMED, MEDLINE, ProQuest, Lexis-Nexis; ISI's Current Contents/Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences.

ISSN 0278-2715
Electronic ISSN 1544-5208

Federal Tax I.D. Number 53-0242962

Publisher

Health Affairs is published and copyrighted by Project HOPE — The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
7500 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 600
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-656-7401