An aid to generating figures for the American Journal of Epidemiology using SAS/GRAPH

Data visualization is an important tool that epidemiologists use to communicate with others in the field. The American Journal of Epidemiology recently acknowledged the importance of data visualization by inaugurating an award for the "Figure of the Year." Yet, creating figures that adhere to the standards of the Journal is a challenge. The purpose of the present article was to provide helpful hints for creating figures in SAS/GRAPH that meet the requirements of the Journal. It stresses 3 techniques: properly sizing figures overall, sizing text within a figure, and creating acceptable file formats. This information will prove useful to authors who create data-driven figures intended to be published in the Journal.