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Instructions for Authors
SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Papers, written in English, are considered for publication and should be submitted in electronic format to: jhpn@icddrb.org. A print copy of the manuscript should also be submitted to Managing Editor, Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, ICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population Research, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1000 (Mohakhali, Dhaka 1212), Bangladesh. While submitting the manuscript, written approval (either in black and white or by email) of all authors must as well be submitted.
The manuscript must be accompanied with copies of any permissions to reproduce published materials, to use illustrations or report-sensitive personal information of identifiable persons, or to name persons for their contributions
EDITORIAL POLICIES
The Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition has adopted the following editorial policies:
The Journal puts emphasis on speedy publication. Most articles are published within four months of acceptance. There is no absolute rule against articles primarily dealing with industrialized countries; however, preference is given to the articles dealing with issues of developing countries.
The manuscripts that are poorly written are returned without further examination. However, technical editing for grammatical flaws and inconsistency in style elements is done on the accepted papers.
Public-health professionals sometimes report lessons they have learnt from their experience. Often these are important lessons and may be reported in working papers and monographs. While these may be valuable, they may also be biased, and the data may not have sufficient reliability. The Journal prefers articles on studies that are well-designed and substantiated by adequate and reliable data.
To facilitate rapid publication of high-quality articles, the Journal has several section editors who review manuscripts in their areas of expertise. These sections include: Emerging Infections, Health Systems, Immunization, Nutrition, Population, Reproductive Health, and Water and Sanitation.
The section headings may suggest narrowly-focused articles, but the Journal favours manuscripts that show interactions among different sections and cross-cutting of issues relating to broad aspects of health.
Type of papers published
The Journal publishes articles of authors from any part of the globe, but has a special interest in publishing original research of relevance to developing countries. It publishes original research articles, review articles, short reports, and letters on new findings (see Mission and Editorial policies above). Occasionally, the Journal carries an editorial perspective. The aim is to explore diverse perspectives and to offer opinions on controversial subjects. The Journal also publishes theme-based issues.
In principle, a review article should not generally exceed 6,500 words, and an original research article should also not generally exceed 4,500 words, including the abstract, tables, figures, photographs, illustrations, references, and other appendices. A short report should not exceed 2,200 words, including abstract, tables, figures, and references. Letters should be brief and to the point; tables can be included, but graphs and illustrations will not normally be used. References must be kept to a minimum.
Acceptance of paper
All decisions to accept, revise, or refuse a paper will be made by the editors.
Papers are accepted for publication provided these are submitted solely to the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, and are subject to peer review and editorial revision.
Statements and opinions expressed in review articles, original papers, short reports, letters, editorials, and supplements published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition are of the author(s) and not necessarily of the editors or the publisher; the editors and the publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for such material. Neither the editors nor the publisher guarantee, or endorse any products or services advertised in this publication, nor guarantee any claims made by the manufacturer of such product or service.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts should be prepared using double-spacing throughout, including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgements, references, tables, and legends for illustrations. Number pages consecutively, beginning with the title page.
Manuscripts must be accompanied with a covering letter. This must include: (a) information on prior or duplicate publication or submission of any part of the work elsewhere; (b) a statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all authors (written approval must accompany); (c) the name, address, telephone, fax number, and email address of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs.
Title page
The title page should carry: (a) the title of the article, which should be concise but informative; (b) a short running head or footline of no more than 40 characters placed at the foot of the title page; (c) first name, middle initial, and last name of each author, with highest academic degree(s), and institutional affiliation; (d) name of department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed; (e) disclaimers, if any; (f) sources of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these; (g) name and address of the author responsible for correspondence; (h) name and address of the author to whom requests for reprints should be addressed or statement that reprints are not available from the author(s).
Authorship
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content of the article.
Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to: (a) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (c) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions (a), (b), and (c) must all be met. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is also not sufficient for authorship. Any parts of an article critical to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author.
A paper with corporate (collective) authorship must specify the key persons responsible for the article; others contributing to the work should be recognized separately (see ‘Acknowledgements’).
Abstract and key words
The abstract of no more than 150 words should state the purposes of the study or investigation; basic procedures (selection of study subjects; observational and analytical methods); main findings (give specific data and their statistical significance, if possible); and the principal conclusions. Emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations. Use only approved abbreviations.
Below the abstract, provide and identify as such 3 to 10 key words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and may be published with the abstract. Key words or short phrases should be sufficient to describe the content of the text. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings list of the Index Medicus, published by the US National Library of Madicine (NLM), USA; if suitable MeSH terms are not yet available for recently-introduced terms, present terms may be used.
Text
The text should be divided into sections with the following headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion.
Introduction: The purpose(s) of the study should be clearly stated. Summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give strictly pertinent references only, and do not review the subject extensively. Do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.
Materials and methods: Describe your selection of the observational subjects clearly. Identify the methods, apparatus (names and addresses of manufacturers in parenthesis), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well- known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations.
Ethics: When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the committee on human experimentation of the institution in which the experiments were done or in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. Do not use names of patients, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in any illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animal subjects, indicate whether the institution’s or the national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Statistics: Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence interval). Avoid sole reliance on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of p value, which fails to convey important quantitative information. References for study design and statistical methods should be made to standard works (with pages stated) when possible rather than to papers where designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general computer programmes used.
Include general descriptions of methods in the Materials and Methods section. When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used for analyzing them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as ‘random’ (which implies a randomizing device), ‘normal,’ ‘significant,’ ‘correlations,’ and ‘sample.’ Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols used.
Results: Present results of your study in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all data in the tables or illustrations, or both: emphasize or summarize only important observations.
Discussion: Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and conclusions that follow from them. Highlight the important/major findings first, then highlight the less-important findings. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction section or the Results section. Include in the Discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research. Relate the observations to other relevant studies. Link the conclusions with the goals of the study, but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by your data. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included.
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