Instructions to authors

Transcription

1 Instructions to authors Authorship Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; that its publication has been approved by all coauthors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work has been carried out; that, if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors agree to automatically transfer the copyright to the publisher; that the manuscript will not be published elsewhere in any language without consent of the copyright holder. General Comments Acceptance of Articles Articles are accepted for publication on condition that they are contributed solely to the International Journal of Public Health (IJPH) (formerly Sozial- und Präventivmedizin (SPM)). Work that has been simultaneously submitted or accepted elsewhere for publication cannot be considered. All papers submitted for publication are reviewed by experts. A written response will be offered to the authors. Language All contributions should be submitted in English. The author is responsible that the text and summaries conform to correct usage and style. It is therefore advisable to have the text proofread by someone who masters the language. Responsibility of Authors Authors accept all responsibility for the form and substance of their work. For substantial modifications after notification of acceptance a fee will be charged to authors. The modifications will need to be approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Reprints Authors will receive 20 reprints of each article without charge. Additional reprints may be purchased in lots of 50 if ordered when the final corrected page proofs are returned. Copyright Copyright for manuscripts that are accepted and published in IJPH are the property of Birkhäuser Publishers. Sections of the Journal Editorials are short essays that express the author s viewpoint or explain journal policies (800 words). Opinion pieces that are more indepth may be published as Forum (2500 words, 2 tables or figures) usually accompanied by Short Commentaries (1000 words). Reactions relating to previously published articles or to topical and internationally relevant issues concerning Public Health and Health Promotion may be published as Letters to the Editors. Papers that report on original quantitative or qualitative research or methods are presented as Original Articles (4000 words, abstracts: 180 words, max. 40 references) or as Brief Reports (2000 words, abstracts: 120 words, max. 20 references, 2 tables or figures). Preliminary or limited findings may be reported as Scientific Letters (1000 words, no abstracts, 1 table or figure). International comparison of health determinants: these Original Articles (4000 words) present survey or surveillance data using a standardised format. Distribution of health determinants are presented in an Appendix, stratified by gender and 5- year age groups, starting with 0 4, 5 9, etc. For each gender and age

2 specific categories, present the percentiles 10, 50, 90, the mean and the SD. See Bernstein et al., Soz Praventiv Med 2001; 46 (1): for a model. The paper itself presents a detailed description of the survey design and the measurement methods. Results focus on the most salient observations beyond the descriptive statistics included in the Appendix. Percentiles are shown, when relevant, with their confidence intervals. If data on similar variables have been published as contributions to this section of IJPH, use the corresponding appendices as a source of comparison and discussion. Section Eastern Europe: With this section, IJPH endeavours to promote knowledge transfer between East and West. Over the past few years, public health research in Eastern European countries has been emerging fast and IJPH is dedicated to making the enormous wealth of public health knowledge that lies in the scope of IJPH (i. e. survey, surveillance and health promotion research) in Eastern Europe available to the scientific community on a global scale. IJPH adopts the WHO definition of Eastern Europe which comprises the newly independent states, that is, the 13 countries that formerly belonged to the USSR: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, plus the three Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania); and the countries of Central and Oriental Europe, that is, the countries that used to belong to the influence zone of the USSR without being part of it, and/or had planned economies: Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia (Slovak Republic), and Slovenia. IJPH is committed to assist authors from these countries in adapting their work to the general standards of publication in international public health journals. Hints & Kinks: these reports (1000 words) present topics relevant to all steps involved in survey research and surveillance, from the conception of the study to presenting the results, and all steps in-between. They present experiences with techniques that work and techniques that didn t work, in a variety of areas and topics, such as writing questions, questionnaire design, survey implementation, or new and original ways to show results, etc. They are based on published work or on valuable and profound personal experience or on both. They are illustrated with examples of questionnaires, questions, or survey practices. IJPH publishes Book Reviews on recent titles in the area of survey/surveillance and health promotion research. Of special interest: the contents of this rubric are referenced in the table of contents and can therefore be cited. Manuscripts should be written in view of their submission for anyone of these sections. Submission Authors are asked to submit their manuscript via electronic mail to the Editorial Office. We prefer to receive the manuscript as files saved in Microsoft Word. Please specify in an accompanying message what computer (e. g., PC or Apple Macintosh), operating system (e. g. Windows NT), and software was used, including which release (e. g., MS Word 7). Submit text, tables and illustrations as separate files. Save your illustration files as.tif,.eps or.jpeg. Keep a back-up disk for reference and safety.

3 Editorial Office IJPH Simone Wassilevski-Seiler Department of Social and Preventive Medicine University of Bern Niesenweg 6 CH 3012 Bern Switzerland swassilevski@ispm.unibe.ch Structure of the Text 1. First page: The manuscript must be preceded by a short and concise title, authors names, affiliation incl. location (city). 2. Structured abstract (including titles) in English. 3. Keywords (up to 6, in English). 4. Text of the manuscript 5. References 6. Acknowledgements 7. Address for correspondence 8. Appendices (if necessary). 9. Tables (each on a separate sheet/file). 10. Figures (each on a separate sheet/file). Title Page, Address for Correspondence and Acknowledgement After the title follow the first names (in full) and the surnames (with no mention of any academic degrees) of all authors. These are followed by the institutional affiliation of all authors. Any other information authors may wish to give such as the titles, and positions of the authors, together with the names of any other institutions involved, sources of any specific works that were the basis of the study or acknowledgements should appear at the end of the manuscript followed by the address for correspondence (with the title and the first name in full). The address for correspondence will be printed at the very end of the article. Conflict of Interest and Source of Funding At the end of the text, under the subheading of Conflict of interest, all authors must disclose any financial or personal relations to people or organisations that could influence (bias) their work. Examples of financial conflicts include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications, and travel grants, all within three years of beginning the work submitted. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that there are none. All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Structured Abstract The abstract must inform readers of the main content of the article and include a brief description of the field of activity, the methodology and main results under 4 headings: Objectives; Methods (design, population, analysis); Results; Conclusions. The limit for abstracts is 180/120 for Original Articles/Brief Reports. Text Original contributions should be structured as follows: Introduction (the problems dealt with, objectives and hypotheses); Methods (material and methods, and population studied); Results; Discussion. It is recommended to make use of subtitles to structure the text. Manuscripts should be written in double spacing with margins of at least 2.5 cm. All numbers above nine should be written in numeric form. Arabic numerals should not be used to start a sentence and those over should have a space after the thousand. Percent should be written as % with space between the figure and the sign. The use of abbreviations must be limited to a strict minimum; if abbreviations are unavoidable, they must be clearly explained. When referring to tables and figures abbreviations should be used (Tab., Fig.). Special typographic characters, footnotes and underlining should be avoided. Remove other obvious indications of author identity. Tables & Figures Tables must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Footnotes to tables are to be placed directly below the table and should be indicated by superscript

4 lowercase Italic letters (a, b, c). The position of each table in the text should be indicated (e. g., Tab. 1 here). Figures must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals according to their order of appearance in the text. Only documents that can be easily reproduced such as drawings in Indian ink and glossy prints (photographs) can be accepted. Photostats are not accepted. The figures must be ready, in all respects, for direct reproduction, no lettering or other art work will be done by the publisher. References Please read carefully; articles accepted for publication must be formatted in accordance with these requirements before going to press. Unformatted contributions must be charged a fee. References should be cited in the text as Reports by Author (1989) have confirmed or as reported earlier (Author & Author 1985; Author et al. 1998). Do not place text other than the author and year of publication within the parentheses. References should be listed at the end of the main text. The list of references should be in alphabetical order of surnames. References by the same author(s) should be in chronological order. Use the normal form of listed references of the surnames and initials of all authors when six or less; when seven or more list just three and add et al. Continue with year in parenthesis; article title; journal name abbreviated according to Index Medicus Style ( ls/lji.html) volume number and page numbers. Titles of books should be followed by the place of publication and the publisher. Unpublished observations and personal communications may not be used as references. Manuscripts in press may be cited in the references. References should be limited to what is strictly necessary: 40 for Original Articles and 20 for Brief Reports. Examples: Journal Articles Personal author(s): Wilson D, Parsons J, Tucker G (2000). The SF- 36 summary scales: problems and solutions. Soz Praventiv Med 45: Künzli N (2000). Ministers of Health, Environment, Traffic, Economy: you need to have lunch together [Editorial]. Soz Praventiv Med45: Corporate author: World Health Organization (1977). Failure of syngeneic bone-marrow graft without preconditioning in posthepatitis marrow aplasia. Lancet 2: No author given: Anonymous (1981). Coffee drinking and cancer of the pancreas [Editorial]. BMJ 283: 628. Journal Supplement Araki K, Nagano T, Ueda M, et al. (1999). Incidence of skin cancers and precancerous lesions in Japanese: risk factors and prevention. J Epidemiol 9 (6 Suppl): S Monographs Personal author(s): Gerhardt U (1989). Ideas about illness: an intellectual and political history of medical sociology. New York: New York University Press. Editor, compiler, chairman as author: Watson J, Platt S, eds. (2000). Researching health promotion. London; New York: Routledge. Chapter in a Book Jackson P (1995). The development of a scientific fact: the case of passive smoking. In: Bunton R, Nettleton S, Burrows R, eds. The sociology of health promotion: critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk. London; New York: Routledge: Open Choice In addition to the standard publication process in which there are no financial costs on the side of the author(s), Open Choice now provides an alternative publishing option. An Open Choice article receives all benefits of a regular subscription-based article, but in addition, the full text is made available publicly through the journal s online

5 platform SpringerLink immediately after publication. Open Choice is available for authors at a rate of CHF/article. To publish via Open Choice upon acceptance of your article, please complete the relevant order form and provide the required payment information; the order form will be sent to you by our production department together with the page proofs of your article. Payment must be received in full before publication or articles will be published as a regular subscription-model article. Online First Accepted manuscripts will be published electronically Online First until they are assigned to an issue.

6