Call for submissions

Harvard Public Health is a digital and print magazine published by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. We are editorially independent of the school and cover public health worldwide. We are building a dynamic commentary section, Insights, and are actively recruiting writers interested in contributing opinion and analysis to our pages.

How to pitch

Please do not submit a completed draft. Instead, send us a pitch that includes:

• A draft headline. Your headline should be clear, straightforward, and reflect the thesis of your argument. Avoid being too clever. Avoid all puns. Think of this as a way to tell readers exactly what your piece is all about in just a few words.
• A one- or two-paragraph summary of your article. Commentaries and opinion pieces offer concise takes on a topic – our preferred length is 600 to 900 words. That means a writer can effectively make one main point. Your pitch should make that point clearly while giving us a sense of your writing voice. The pitch also needs to show us why your piece matters, right now, to people interested in public health.
• A brief note about who you are, including current affiliation and relevant background. Please also tell us why you’re the best person to write about your topic.

You can send your pitch to our senior opinion editor, Christine Mehta, using the form at the bottom of this page.

What We Look For

We welcome opinion, analysis, and brief narratives from scholars, researchers, clinicians, policymakers, activists, and anyone with expertise in or experience engaging with public health around the world. We seek fresh perspective and rigorous analysis on public health issues. While we prefer to work with people who have published in general interest outlets, we will engage with ideas from writers and practitioners at any career level – including members of the public who want to share their encounters with the public health system.  

We aim to spark dialogue and discussion – think dinner party, not lecture hall. Accordingly, strive for a conversational tone in your pitch. Use active voice. Avoid jargon – or if you cannot, make it minimal and clue the rest of us in on what you mean (analogy is an effective tool for sharing the unfamiliar). You do not need to include formal citations, but if you refer to supporting materials such as research studies, please include hyperlinks. We are not news-focused, but our opinion and analysis should be topical, timely, and have the potential to change the public conversation.

Disclosures and Conflicts

Please note that we do not exist to promote products, services, organizations, or individuals. As a rule, then, we will not accept submissions featuring a company, organization or any other entity written by an employee, founder, or executive of said entity. That said, we will consider pitches about the broader merit of a product, service, organization, or study. We encourage submissions by researchers explaining their work or latest study, and members of the private sector analyzing larger trends in public health and private enterprise. If in doubt, please go ahead and pitch us, we review every submission and would be happy to provide guidance.

We welcome the chance to work with people who aren’t journalists, but all our contributors must disclose real and potential conflicts of interest, be they financial or favors. Note the “Act Independently” section of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and disclose any issues it raises. If you are working with a ghostwriter, be transparent about it.