Abstract:
Objective: To investigate health education faculty members' perceptions of criteria for manuscript coauthorship and the perceived status of guest and ghost authorship in health education journals. Methods: National survey of 300 health education faculty members. Results: Three inclusion criteria for authorship were supported by more than 40% of respondents. A majority felt that guest authorship should not be bestowed on others because they are important colleagues. Most respondents had never coauthored a paper that included a ghost author, nor had they been ghost authors. Conclusions: An established set of guidelines concerning authorship may help alleviate some of the presented authorship concerns.