Announcements

Call for Papers: All studies on COVID-19-related behaviours should be published!

COVID-19 has an impact around the world. This has also impacted research activities - as evidenced by the many (pre-print) articles and Call for Papers around this topic. However, this is not your everyday run of the mill Call for Papers. There are three important elements regarding this call for Health Psychology Bulletin (HPB):

This call focuses on studies about determinants of behaviours related to prevention of COVID-19 (e.g., physical distancing, handwashing, wearing face masks). Results of such studies are needed urgently to inform government regulations and interventions around the world. Therefore, we aim for a quick review and to get articles published as soon as possible (we will not first compile a special issue, but release them immediately on an article-by-article basis).
We are also open to studies that have been conducted before the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was detected. For example, ‘older’ determinant studies on preventive behaviours, such as handwashing and wearing face masks, that might have been rejected before, but suddenly increase in relevance again.
In line with the spirit of Health Psychology Bulletin, we aim to publish all studies, so we explicitly invite submissions of null findings, replications (regardless of the outcome), and reports of failed manipulations. Reviewers and editors are instructed to not reject papers because of methodological errors or insufficient power. Instead, at HPB the reviewing procedure is a collaborative effort where authors and reviewers work together to make sure the paper is a transparent documentation of the conducted research. The focus is on learning what can be learned, making sure we, as a field, don’t repeat the same mistakes, and enabling accurate meta-analysis of the total sum of our findings (see the inaugural editorial at https://www.healthpsychologybulletin.com/articles/10.5334/hpb.2/). This learning is even more relevant with a new virus that comes with many new unknowns - also with regard to understanding and changing preventive behaviours.

So, please take a moment, and submit your paper on determinants of behaviours related to prevention of COVID-19 to HPB! To start submission: https://www.healthpsychologybulletin.com/submit/start/

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of the Editors-in-Chief (see https://healthpsychologybulletin.com/about/editorialteam for the editorial team).

We look forward to your submission!

On behalf of the editorial board,

The HPB Editors-In-Chief,

Diana Tăut, Gjalt-Jorn Peters & Rik Crutzen

Posted on 17 Jul 2020

Announcements

Empty your filedrawer: Health Psychology Bulletin’s first Call for Papers

This is not your everyday run of the mill Call for Papers.

We explicitly want to ask you to submit your work that has so far been rejected everywhere.

Specifically, the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) hereby cordially invites you to take a moment to open your file drawers, look up those papers you didn’t manage to get published, and submit them to Health Psychology Bulletin.

As you may know, the EHPS is actively working to improve the integrity of Health Psychology science, and as a result, the integrity of our evidence base. To this end, the EHPS has founded Health Psychology Bulletin (HPB), an innovative journal designed to remedy publication bias.

HPB, while also welcoming regular contributions, explicitly invites submissions of null findings, replications (regardless of the outcome), and reports of failed manipulations. In fact, although the HPB reviewing procedure is as rigorous as you can expect from an EHPS journal, reviewers and editors are instructed to not reject papers because of methodological errors or insufficient power. Instead, at HPB the reviewing procedure is a collaborate effort where authors and reviewers work together to make sure the paper is a transparent documentation of the conducted research. The focus is on learning what can be learned, making sure we, as a field, don’t repeat the same mistakes, and enabling accurate meta-analysis of the total sum of our findings.

So, please take a moment, and dig out that one paper that for some reasons, no journal seems to understand, and submit it to HPB!

The EHPS has taken the first big step to a less biased health psychology literature – we need you to take the next step!

For more details, see the editorial at http://healthpsychbull.com/articles/10.5334/hpb.2 or contact one of the editors (see http://healthpsychbull.com/about/editorialteam for the editorial team).

We look forward to your submission!

On behalf of the editorial board,

The HPB Editors-In-Chief,

Gerjo Kok and Gjalt-Jorn Peters

Posted on 03 Apr 2017

Announcements

Press release: New journal launched to remedy publication bias

Health Psychology Bulletin (HPB) is an initiative of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) and community oriented open access publisher Ubiquity Press (UP). By launching this journal, the EHPS and UP hope to ultimately contribute to better mental and physical health all over the world. The journal will have a full disclosure policy, strongly recommending authors to make public not only their data, but also everything other researchers need to replicate their study and analyses.

Ethical responsibility
HPB aims to publish all research, based on the view that once data have been collected from participants, it is the ethical responsibility of the scientific community to publish those data. Therefore, HPB will even publish flawed studies, provided that the flaws are clearly explained and the conclusions that are drawn are consistent with the data.

Transparent, honest and integer
For all research, HPB papers will frankly discuss what went wrong and which changes were made along the way. The journal will focus on the lessons that can be learned instead of selling a study, design, or specific findings. This radically different policy means that HPB will strive to realise a shift from the traditional, competitive model of science to a more collaborative model, where research papers become transparent, honest, and integer documentations of a scientific endeavour.

About the Editors in Chief
Editors in Chief are Gerjo Kok and Gjalt-Jorn Peters. They are supported by an expert, international Editorial Board. Gerjo Kok is professor of applied psychology at Maastricht University. His research focuses on applying psychological theories to behaviour change to reduce societal problems and on planning models for behaviour change interventions for health promotion and disease prevention, energy conservation, traffic safety, and discrimination. Gjalt-Jorn Peters is health psychologist at the Dutch Open University. His research focuses on methodology, statistics and ethics of health psychology research, behaviour change in general, and nightlife-related health.

Follow @HealthPsychBull on Twitter, or visit Health Psychology Bulletin online for general information.

For the Maastricht University press release webpage, click here.

Posted on 01 Mar 2017