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not be published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 5year age groups, starting
with 0–4, 5–9, etc. For
each gender and age
–
specific categories,
present the percentiles
10, 50, 90, the mean and
the SD. See Bernstein et
al., Soz Praventiv Med
2001; 46 (1): 49–59 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.
Editorial Office IJPH
Simone Wassilevski-Seiler
Department of Social and
Preventive Medicine
University of Bern
Niesenweg 6
CH – 3012 Bern
Switzerland
e-mail:
[email protected]
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 1
000 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
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.
Style
(www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/seria
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.
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
Examples:
Journal Articles
Personal author(s):
Wilson D, Parsons J,
Tucker G (2000). The SF36 summary scales:
problems and solutions.
Soz Praventiv Med 45:
239–46.
Künzli N (2000). Ministers
of Health, Environment,
Traffic, Economy: you
need to have lunch
together [Editorial]. Soz
Praventiv Med45: 237–8.
Corporate author:
World Health Organization
(1977). Failure of
syngeneic bone-marrow
graft without
preconditioning in posthepatitis marrow aplasia.
Lancet 2: 242–4.
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): S14–
21.
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: 103–15.
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
platform SpringerLink
immediately after publication.
Open Choice is available for
authors at a rate of 4’000.–
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.
http://www.springer.com/journal/38