Editorial Policies

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Rights of the Publisher
Upon acceptance of a submission, author(s) transfer copyright to the publisher, The American Academy of Pediatrics. The academy has the right to use copyrighted work for reproduction, derivation, and distribution by sale, license or other means. This includes adaptation for use with online publishing systems, syndication, and merchandising in print, electronic and other media. Transfer of copyright does not constitute transfer of patent or trademark rights or rights to any process or procedure described in the work. Reproduction of the work, other than that outlined in rights to authors, requires permission of the publisher. A work falls under the public domain only if all authors are employed or working on behalf of the U.S. government at the time a study is conducted and prepared for publication. In this case, the statement "This article has been published in the public domain by the American Academy of Pediatrics." will be published.

Rights of Authors
After an article has been accepted for publication in PEDIATRICS, the journal licenses the following rights back to the author(s): 1) patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or procedure described in the article; 2) the right to photocopy or make single electronic copies of the article for personal use, including for their own classroom use, or for the personal use of colleagues, provided the copies are not offered for sale and are not distributed in a systematic way outside of their employing institution (e.g. via an email list or public file server); 3) posting of a PDF copy of the article on a secure network (not accessible to the public) within the author’s institution is permitted; 4) creating a “toll-free” link from an author’s personal or secure institutional Web site is permitted with AAP permission; 5) the right, subsequent to publication, to use the article or any part thereof free of charge in a printed compilation of works of their own, such as collected writings, theses or lecture notes. For more details regarding the academy’s policies regarding rights and permissions, contact the Permissions Department.

For NIH-funded authors, the journal requires that you choose the 12-month embargo option when submitting the final, peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central.

Disclosure

PEDIATRICS and the American Academy of Pediatrics require detailed disclosure by all authors of any potential or actual interests relevant to the topic(s) discussed in submitted manuscripts. This policy is not intended to prevent authors with financial or other interests from publishing their work. However, it is the responsibility of the journal to provide reviewers and readers with full disclosure to ensure scientific integrity. Disclosures will be shared in full with reviewers. Disclosures will be published with accepted articles if deemed appropriate by the editors. If no potential or actual interests are disclosed, a statement to that effect will be published. For more information on the journal's disclosure policies, please contact the jpuskarz{at}aap.org.

AUTHORSHIP & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Pediatrics adheres to the guidelines for authorship developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. An author is defined as a contributor who has participated in the work to the extent that s/he takes responsibility for a meaningful share of the manuscript’s content. Specifically, authors are required to affirm their participation in the conception and design of the research or experiment(s); collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; drafting of the manuscript and revising of intellectual content; approval of the manuscript as submitted; and approval of the final version of the manuscript to be published. All authors are asked to affirm that they have had full access to and uphold the integrity of the data presented.

Contributors who do not meet the above criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgement along with their specific contributions. Such contributors might include those persons who provided technical help, writing assistance, data collection, or general support. Because readers may infer the endorsement of data or conclusions of those acknowledged, the journal requires that all persons acknowledged provide written permission. Written permission should be collected by the corresponding author and should be available to the publisher upon request. Additionally, the corresponding author should also obtain written permission from any individual identified as a source of information (unpublished data). This consent should be made available to the journal upon request.

If a change in authorship (e.g, addition or deletion of an author; change in author order) is requested, ALL authors must sign a letter conveying that ALL have agreed to the change and a rationale for this alteration should be provided. The change is left to the discretion of the Editor of PEDIATRICS.

CLINICAL TRIALS

PEDIATRICS requires authors to disclose whether or not a work reports the results of a clinical trial. If authors report the results of a clinical trial, they must affirm that the study has been registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov or another qualified national or international registry. Authors must also complete and include a Consort form upon submission. Investigators should use registries that meet the following minimum requirements: is available to the public at no charge; is open to all prospective registrants; is managed by a not-for-profit organization; has a validation mechanism of the registration data; is electronically searchable; contains the following information: unique identifying number; intervention(s) and comparison(s) studied; study hypothesis; primary and secondary outcome measures; eligibility criteria; key trial dates (registration, anticipated or actual start of study, anticipated or actual last follow-up, planned or actual closure to data entry, and completion of data); target number of participants; funding source; and contact information for the principal investigators.

PATIENTS & RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

Information that could potentially reveal the identity of a patient or study participant should not be included unless this information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or the patient’s parent or legal guardian) provides written informed consent. Informed consent requires that the patient (or the patient’s parent or legal guardian) be provided a copy of the manuscript to be published before providing consent. If informed consent is required, it must be stated that written informed consent was obtained, or, the authors must state that, to the best of their knowledge, no information that could identify patients or research participants is contained in the article.

Authors are also required to affirm that any research involving human subjects submitted to the journal was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of all applicable national and institutional committees (e.g., IRB protocols) and with the World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration.

For research involving animal subjects, the journal requires the authors affirm that a study submitted for consideration was conducted in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory and other animals.

MISCONDUCT

All authors are responsible to ensure that information presented in a submission is accurate. PEDIATRICS reserves the right to decline to publish work if the journal determines that a significant conflict of interest exists. The journal also reserves the right to retract an article if author misconduct has been established and to prohibit future submission from any author who has participated in misconduct.

Misconduct includes, but is not limited to, inappropriate conduct related to research participants, fabrication or falsification of data, plagiarism, theft of intellectual property, duplicate publication, misrepresentation of authorship, and failure to disclose potential or real financial or non-financial conflicts of interest.

When there is an allegation of misconduct, the journal reserves the right to forward material to the author’s institution for investigation; however, the journal does not make a determination of misconduct.

EMBARGO POLICY

Material published in PEDIATRICS is embargoed until the first Monday of the month in which an article is published. Should the first Monday of the month fall on a holiday, the embargo period may change. Early release articles are embargoed until the day they are electronically posted. The American Academy of Pediatrics may distribute embargoed material to the press if subject matter describes a major advance or hazard to public health. To inquire further about the academy’s media policies, contact the the Academy's Public Relations office at 847/434-7877.