INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

The J Health Res follows guidelines set forth in the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (update of December 2016, available online at https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). All authors should read these guidelines before preparing manuscripts.

Manuscript submission: All manuscripts should be submitted in electronic format. Authors wishing to submit a manuscript for peer review need to register for a journal account and should examine our author guideline requirements.

Editorial process: All manuscripts will be reviewed for potential publication with the understanding that they are original contributions, have not been published previously and are not under simultaneous consideration for publication elsewhere. All authors must comply with this policy.

All submitted manuscripts, for both the regular bimonthly issues and supplements, are subject to review by the editor and a panel of at least two independent peer-reviewers whose names are not normally disclosed to authors, and vice-versa (double-blind peer review policy). The comments and suggestions (acceptance/rejection/revisions to manuscript) received from reviewers will be conveyed to the corresponding author. Authors are generally requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process may be repeated until reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript. Decisions regarding publication are based on scientific importance and interest, relevance, soundness of methodology, and adherence to scientific and ethical standards.

Publication categories: The following types of submissions are invited (please note that word counts given below do not include the abstract, acknowledgements, references, tables, or figures):

Original research articles: These are full length reports of original research. An abstract is required, as described below. These articles should be no longer than 4000 words.

Review articles: These are comprehensive analyses on specific topics. An abstract and keywords are required, as described below. Reviews may or may not include formal meta-analysis, depending on the specific circumstances. The word “meta-analysis” must not appear in the title of reviews that do not include meta-analysis. Reviews should be no longer than 5000 words.

Short report: The J Health Res welcomes relevant short reports pertaining to public health. The preliminary report describes important observations in a concise fashion. Research results are presented in a relatively limited area of study. The word limit is 2000 words.

Letter to editor: Letters are comments on a particular published article or a reply to the comment. Headings should not be used in a letter; no abstract or keywords are required. Letters should be no more than 600 words.

Commentaries and editorials: Commentaries dealing with current public health and related social issues can be submitted, with a word limit of 1500 words. The J Health Res sometimes invites such commentaries and editorials.

Manuscript preparation: Manuscripts should be typewritten in English in J Health Res format, with 2.5 cm (1 inch) margins all around, 12-point Times New Roman font, and 1.5 line-spacing. Authors should obtain the help of a native English speaker for editing the text prior to submission. The manuscript should be drafted in the following order:

Title and list of authors: The title must be concise, clear, and informative. Titles with more than 100 characters are not prohibited, but they are discouraged. All authors should be listed using first name, initials, last name and academic affiliation. The corresponding author should be specified, and an address for correspondence (usually an e-mail address) should be given.

Abstract: Each research and review manuscript should include an abstract. Abstracts for research manuscripts should be divided into four sections, headed Purpose, Design/methodology/approach, Findings, and Originality/value. The Purpose section gives the research problem addressed and the scientific justification for the research. The Design section summarizes study procedures, main outcome variables (dependent variables), and main comparisons made in data analysis. The Findings section summarizes relevant findings, both positive and negative. The Originality section gives interpretation of results, study strengths and limitations, and relevant research and policy recommendations. Abstracts should contain 250 words or less. Use of abbreviations for anything other than units of measurement is discouraged, and all such abbreviations, in both the abstract and the body of the manuscript, must be spelled out when first used.

Keywords: Immediately after the abstract, provide not more than 6 words or phrases in alphabetical order which reflect the scope of the paper.

Body of research manuscripts: The substantive portion of the research manuscript should be organized into four sections. The Background section should present the context and justification of the research, the knowledge gap that the research addresses, and the research hypothesis as appropriate. Research hypotheses should not be presented as null hypothesis in the Methods section. This section should clearly present research procedures, sample size calculations as appropriate, dependent and independent variables, comparisons made in testing research hypotheses, and statistical techniques applied. Null hypotheses may be stated in the Methods section. The Results section should clearly present study findings, using text, tables, and figures as appropriate. This section usually includes descriptive findings (e.g., distributions of dependent and independent variables) and analytical findings (e.g., associations between dependent and independent variables). The Results section should not include interpretation of results. The fourth section should be headed “Discussion”. This section presents interpretation of research findings, relates findings to findings of relevant previous research, summarizes study strengths and limitations, and makes research-related and policy-related recommendations as appropriate. Policy recommendations that do not follow directly from the research findings presented should be clearly identified as such.

Tables and figures: Should be placed in body of text in MS Word format and a maximum of 6 tables and figures. Each table or figure should be numbered consecutively with a brief title for each but place explanatory matter in a footnote below the table or figure.

Appendix: Supplementary information should be presented in an appendix and placed before the reference section.

All funding sources must be mentioned, including funding organizations and numbers of grants and other vehicles of funding. This material may be placed in the Acknowledgements (see below).

Acknowledgements: Acknowledgement of persons, organizations, and funding sources, should be placed before the reference section.

References: The Vancouver style reference format should be followed. In-text citations are to be numbered consecutively in parentheses. In the reference list, citations should be given in the same numbered order as in the text. All authors should be quoted for papers with up to six authors, and for papers with more than six authors, the first six should be quoted followed by “et al.” Periodical (Journal) abbreviations should follow those used by PubMed (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). Some examples of how to quote references are given below.

Journal article:

1.  Kwan I, Mapstone J. Visibility aids for pedestrians and cyclists: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Accid Anal Prev. 2004; 36(3): 305-12.

2.  Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002 May; 935(1-2): 40-6.

3.  Montero D, Roche E, Martinez-Rodriguez A. The impact of aerobic exercise training on arterial stiffness in pre- and hypertensive subjects: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Cardiol. 2014 May; 173(3): 361-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2014.03.072

Entire book:

4.  Miles DA, Van Dis ML, Williamson GF, Jensen CW. Radiographic imaging for the dental team.  4th ed.  St. Louis: Saunders Elsevier; 2009.

Book chapter:

5.  Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002.  p.93-113.

Electronic journal article (The most recent date of access must be given):

6.  Stone D, Harper BJ, Lynch I, Dawson K, Harper SL. Exposure assessment: recommendations for nanotechnology-based pesticides. Int J Occup Environ Health. 2010 Oct-Dec; 16(4): 467-74 [cited 2010 Jan 10].  Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21222390

Electronic book/monograph on the Internet:

7.  Donaldson MS, editor. Measuring the quality of health care [monograph on the internet]. Washington: National Academy Press; 1999 [cited 2004 Oct 8]. Available from: https://legacy.netlibrary.com/

Proceedings article:

8.  Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, editors. Genetic programming.  EuroGP: Proceedings of the 5^th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Berlin: Springer; 2002. p.182-91.

Website [updated = Last Update Date; cited = Access Year Access Date]:

9.  National Cancer Institute.  Fact sheet: targeted cancer therapies. [updated: 2014 April 25; cited 2014 June 2]. Available from: https://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Therapy/targeted#q1

Plagiarism and duplication: If we receive evidence that a manuscript has been plagiarized more than 30%, the manuscript will be immediately rejected.

Errata: Occasionally authors discover, after publication, errors in data presentation, analysis, or interpretation. When this occurs, authors must promptly notify the J Health Res of all errors and all suggested corrections. Errata and corrections will appear in the following issue of J Health Res. If errors are serious, the publication may be retracted, at the discretion of the editor.

Copyright: Authors will be asked, upon acceptance of an article, to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher. The editors will provide the corresponding author with a suitable form.