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Taylor & Francis

Prepare your manuscript for Health Systems.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-08-01
Check readiness freePrepare this manuscript

Article types

Review
Research Article
Review Article
Case Report
Commentary
Editorial
Letter
Original Article
Perspective
Systematic Review
Lectio
Clinical Trial
Protocol

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

  • Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 300 words.
  • Use a structured abstract.
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  • Should contain a structured abstract of 300 words.
  • There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to evaluate a manuscript: abstract, author affiliation, figures, tables, funder information, and references.

Keywords

  • Provide 3-7 keywords chosen by the author.
  • Should contain between 3 and 7 keywords.

Reference style

  • Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
  • Should be no more than 10,000 words, inclusive of: References.
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  • Should be no more than 3,000 words, inclusive of: References.
  • For manuscripts submitted in LaTeX format a.bib reference file must be included.
  • All bibliographic entries must contain a corresponding in-text citation.
  • Where applicable, this should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
  • Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors take full responsibility for the integrity of the whole content, including accuracy of references.
  • Guide for length: 10,000 (including figures/tables (no more than 5) and references).

Figure and table rules

  • Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript.
  • Should be no more than 10,000 words, inclusive of: Tables.
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  • Should be no more than 10,000 words, inclusive of: Figure or table captions.
  • Should be no more than 3,000 words, inclusive of: Figure or table captions.
  • Commentary: The maximum tables and figures for Article Commentary’s is 5.
  • The maximum tables and figures for Practitioner Columns is 5.
  • Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size).
  • Figures should be of sufficient resolution to enable refereeing.
  • Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
  • Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.
  • Guide for length: 2,500 words, with no more than 3 tables and figures.

Funding statement

  • You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].

Competing interests

  • Review: Of course, there should be no conflicts of interest between the author(s) and any member of the review team.

Data availability statement

  • Include or confirm the data availability statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Ethics statement

  • Include or confirm the ethics statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Blinded manuscript

  • The PDF should be uploaded as the “Manuscript - with author details”/“Manuscript - anonymous” file.
  • Review: Commentaries should do more than review, they must identify a gap, tension, or blind spot in how the health systems community currently thinks about a problem, and chart a credible path forward.

Cover letter

  • Using Third-Party Material You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article.
  • Review: The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission.
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  • If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.

Author contributions

  • Submitting authors should be prepared to submit CRediT roles for themselves and their co-authors (where applicable) as part of the submission process.

Title page and author information

  • All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript.
  • One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article.

Article structure and word limits

  • The statement should be a summary of no more than 300 words of the contribution of the paper and the theory and practice of OR.
  • An appendix is allowed but must not exceed 3 pages.
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  • An appendix is allowed but must not exceed 5 pages.
  • Should be no more than 2,500 words.
  • Should be no more than 5,000 words.
  • Review: These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
  • Letter: A statement of contribution must be provided for all original articles and uploaded upon submission as a covering letter for your submission.
  • Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
  • Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
  • Research Article: Research Articles (both theoretical and applied papers): Authors should bear in mind the inter-disciplinary ethos of the journal.
  • The relevance of the paper to practice should be made evident within in all papers.
  • Note that, regardless of the file format of the original submission, an editable version of the article must be supplied at the revision stage.
  • You will also need to upload your LaTeX source files, which should be uploaded as a single zip file alongside your submission and marked as “LaTeX Source Files”.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Originality and accuracy of content has been confirmed by the authors.
  • Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable.
  • Authors must retain the original and revised versions which must be shared upon request.
  • The PLSP guidelines for authors must be followed at all times.
  • Eligible reviews should map or critically appraise existing literature on the design, delivery, or evaluation of health systems and services including studies of analytical tools, modelling approaches, and IT-enabled interventions.
  • Case studies should document not only what was done and what happened, but why grounding the narrative in systems thinking, operational research, or health informatics frameworks.
  • Perspective: They are targeted primarily to a practitioner audience i.e. clinicians, managers, policymakers, analysts and system designers, directly involved in service delivery or digital transformation, and must demonstrate relevance to health system planning, organization, and performance from a systems perspective.
  • While formal empirical analysis is not required, articles should maintain scholarly integrity through clear reasoning and appropriate use of evidence, and should engage, where relevant, with existing literature.
  • Please use SI units (non-italicized).
  • Image descriptions are typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make images accessible to people that cannot read or see the object due to a visual disability.

Reporting guidelines

  • Include or confirm the reporting guidelines required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Preprints and prior publication

  • If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server, please be aware that anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

  • Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process.
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  • Use of AI tools as part of ethical research studies is permitted.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: The name and version number of the AI tool used.
  • Systematic Review: Use of AI tools as part of ethically conducted literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and bibliometrics studies is permitted.
  • Use of AI tool assisted plain language summaries (PLS) of authors own work is permitted.
  • Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparation to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors have checked terms of use for the specific AI tool used, and therefore confirm suitability for publication.

Manuscript structure

  • Submissions should offer rigorous, reproducible methods and findings of relevance to the planning, organization, or improvement of health systems.
  • All papers should end with a conclusion which summarizes the value of the work and, where appropriate, indicates possible directions for future developments.
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  • All case-oriented papers should commence with an introduction which indicates clearly that this is an account of an actual project.
  • Therefore all papers should commence with an introduction which is comprehensible to non-specialist readers, and where appropriate worked examples should be included in theoretical papers to assist the understanding of non-specialist readers.
  • It need not contain original research, but all statements and assumptions must be substantiated with evidence from an objective discussion of the topic and by referencing in the normal way.
  • Authors must retain full records of the methods undertaken, including full descriptions and records of the prompts used, which must be shared with the journal upon request.

Article type and manuscript length

  • A typical paper for this journal should not exceed 8,000 words for the main text for first submission.
  • This includes the abstract, tables/figures (no more than 5) and captions (which should be placed in the main text in the position where they are to appear in the finished article) but excludes references and appendices.
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  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Study reporting guidelines

  • Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable (e.g. CONSORT-AI, STARD-AI, GAMER, TRIPOD-AI, etc).
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What your package checks

Abstract: 300 words
Paper: 8,000 words
Keywords: 3-7 keywords
Declarations: Artificial intelligence

Source transparency

This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.

Open official guideline source