Health Affairs has devoted many of its issues to the in-depth exploration of particular policy topics. These thematic issues gather together in one place the top research, important data, and policy thinking of leaders in the field. We have found that Health Affairs' readers refer to these thematic volumes for years afterwards—using them as classroom textbooks, primers, and resource material.

The process for a typical theme issues begins with a planning session about one year before publication involving a small group of experts; the aim of the meeting is to identify appropriate topics and authors for consideration for the issue. Following this session, Health Affairs may directly invite some authors to submit work for consideration; we also issue a “Request for Abstracts” to a large group of potential authors identified at the planning session. We typically invite authors of 10-12 of these abstracts to submit a full paper for consideration for the issue. We also consider unsolicited papers on related topics for these theme issues, as long as the papers arrive by the appropriate deadline for the issue. Invitation or submission by the deadline does not guarantee publication; all papers (including invited papers) go through the peer review process, and our publication decisions are based partly on the outcome of that process.

2010

January

Building a Long-Term Care System for the Future
Request for abstracts issued in December 2008
Abstracts due January 20, 2009
Manuscript submission deadline: July 2, 2009

March

Childhood Obesity
Request for abstracts issued in May 2009
Abstracts due May 22, 2009
Manuscript submission deadline: September 4, 2009

May

Reinventing Primary Care
Request for abstracts issued in November 2009
Abstracts due November 13, 2009
Manuscript submission deadline: December 15, 2009

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