Observational Studies

Author Agreement (standard printed pdf)

Author Agreement (pdf with e-signature capability)

Here are the files to use when creating your article as a LaTex document.

sample.tex, sample.bib, styleguide

Click here for the latex_sample_files.

Open Access Statement

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

The journal does not require article processing charges or any other author fees. To support open-access funding for the journal, institutions can contribute to the Lyrasis Open Access Community Investment Program.

Licensing

To facilitate the Open Access digital publication of the journal, it will be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license or a successor license selected by the Publisher.

Observational Studies is pleased to announce an upcoming special issue dedicated to reflections on and extensions of a foundational work in our field: Jerome Cornfield’s 1959 paper (https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/22/1/173/912572) on the relationship between smoking and lung cancer, which introduced one of the earliest formal frameworks for sensitivity analysis in observational research. Cornfield’s work provided critical insight into the extent to which unmeasured confounding would need to exist to explain away observed associations—a concept that remains central to causal inference today. This commentary series will honor his pioneering contribution by inviting reflections, reinterpretations, methodological extensions, historical context, and modern applications of Cornfield’s sensitivity analysis framework.

We welcome submissions that may include, but are not limited to:

• Historical or conceptual reflections on the impact of Cornfield’s work
• Integrating different types of evidence in evaluating causality
• Methodological advances inspired by or contrasting with Cornfield’s logic
• Contemporary applications of Cornfield-type sensitivity analyses
• Connections to modern frameworks such as E-values or bias functions
• Commentary on the role of sensitivity analysis in current public health or policy debates

Submissions should be no more than 4,000 words but may be shorter and will undergo editorial review. Accepted pieces will be published together in a curated special issue of Observational Studies, alongside an introductory essay.

Deadline for submission: February 2, 2026

All manuscripts should be submitted via the Scholastica online submission system. To submit, please click the blue button.

Inquiries should be directed to Nandita Mitra (nanditam@upenn.edu) and Andrew Spieker (andrew.spieker@vumc.org)