Submissions

Instructions to the Authors

About the Journal

Journal of Comprehensive Health is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by Indian Association of Preventive and Social medicine, West Bengal Chapter.Two issues will be published annually in electronic format in January and July. The journal allows free access (Open Access) to its contents. The journal’s full text is available online at www.iapsm-wbc.co.in & www.journalofcomprehensivehealth.co.in

Scope of the journal

The Journal of Comprehensive Health will publish articles of authors from India and abroad with special emphasis on original research findings that are relevant to developing country perspective including India. The journal considers publication of articles as original article, brief research article, special articles, review articles, case series report, CME article, letter to the editor etc. The journal covers population based studies, impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, systematic review, meta-analysis, clinic-social study in the discipline of public health, specially relevant to national priorities, including ethical and social issues. Articles addressing national health issues and policy implications are preferred.

The Editorial Process

A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to Journal of Comprehensive Health alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The journal expects that authors would authorize one of them (corresponding Author) to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. On submission, editors will review for suitability for formal review. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws, lack of a significant message, and not written according to the journal norms are rejected before proceeding for formal peer-review.

Manuscripts that are found suitable for formal review are sent to two or more expert reviewers. During submission, the contributor is requested to suggest two potential reviewers (Name, institution, brief bio data & email address for communication) who have experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript and are not associated as contributor/s. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. Based on the comments from the reviewers the editorial team takes a final decision on the manuscript. The comments and suggestions of reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.

Authorship Criteria

All authors should be listed on the title page or first page of the manuscript. Each author should have participated in the work sufficiently to take responsibility for some part of the content. Others who contributed to the work but are not authors should be named in the manuscript Acknowledgments

Contribution Details

Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. Description should be divided in following categories as applicable, concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review. One or more author should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article as 'guarantor'.

Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests

All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.

Clinical trial registry

Journal of Comprehensive Health favors registration of clinical trials.

Submission of Manuscripts

All manuscripts must be submitted through electronic mail to [email protected]. Authors do not have to pay for articles. If you experience any problems, please contact the editorial office by e-mail at [email protected].

The journal does not charge, at this moment, any fee for receiving and publishing the article for online version    Authors are requested to go through the ‘Instructions to the Authors’ for preparation and submission of the manuscript carefully; the submitted manuscript not conforming the journal norms may be rejected without further correspondence.

[1] Title Page/First Page File/covering letter:

1. The type of article (original article, brief research article ,case report, review article, Letter to editor, etc.), title of the manuscript, running title, full name of all authors( with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited.
2. The total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the reference, tables and abstract).
3. Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these;
4. Acknowledgement, if any.
5. Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor. Sources of support in the form of grants, equipment and/or drugs should also be specified here, as should declarations of conflict of interest.
6. A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated earlier in this document have been met; and
7. The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revision and final approval of the proofs.

[2] Article file:

The manuscript must not contain any mention of the authors' names or initials or the institution at which the study was done or acknowledgement. Page headers/running title can include the title but not the authors' names. The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. Use doc files. Do not zip the files. Limit the file size to 1MB. Do not incorporate images in the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the first page of the article file.

[3] Images:

Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 4 MB in size. Images should be submitted as jpeg files. Do not zip the files. Legends of figures/images should be included at the end of the article file.

[4] The contributors' / copyright transfer form

The contributors' / copyright transfer form (scanned copy) with the signatures of all the contributors has to be submited through
If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the hard copies of the Contributors’ form / copyright transfer form should be sent to the following address.

The Editor/ Managing Editor,
Journal of Comprehensive Health
Dept of Community medicine
NRS Medical College,
138, AJC Bose Road, Kolkata-700014

Preparation of Manuscripts

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with "Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International committee of Medical Journals’ Editors (October 2006). The instruction to author and the is  available online at www.iapsm-wbc.co.in

 

Types of Manuscripts

All the articles should contain structured abstract / unstructured summary

Original articles:

These include population based surveys, program evaluations, impact assessment studies, randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic test. Outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, meta-analysis, systematic reviews, cohort studies and case-control studies. The text of original articles with word limit up to 3000 words (excluding Abstract, references and Tables) should be divided into sections with the headings, Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables and Figures.

Abstract should be structured, not more than 250 words, briefly mentioning background, objectives, methods, results and conclusion.
Keywords: Up to 8 key words in alphabetical order should be included when submitting the manuscript. The key words will also assist in cross-indexing the article at abstracting services.

Introduction: State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation.

Materials and Methods: It should include and describe the following aspects:

Ethical issue:  Approval from the institutional ethical committee is mandatory for original research and brief research articles. Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand.

.

Study design:

Selection and Description of Participants: Describe selection of the study subjects, clearly including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus, and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods.

Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra- or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text;
Discussion: Include summary of key findings, strength and limitations of the study; interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence controversies raised by this study; and future research directions.
About 30 references can be included.

These articles generally should not have more than six authors.

Review Articles:

Brief Research article

Case study and Case series report:

CME:

Letter to the Editor:

References:

 

Articles in Journals

1. Standard journal article (for up to six authors): Shukla N, Husain N, Agarwal GG, Husain M. Utility of cysticercus fasciolaris antigen in Dot ELISA for the diagnosis of neurocysticercosis. Indian J Med Sci 2008;62:222-7.
2. Standard journal article (for more than six authors): List the first six contributors followed by et al. Nozari Y, Hashemlu A, Hatmi ZN, Shekhvatan M,Iravani A, Bazdar A et al. Outcome of coronary artery bypass grafting in patients without major risk factors and patients with at least one major risk factor for coronary artery disease. Indian J Med Sci 2007;61:547-54

Books and Other Monographs

1. Personal author(s): Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.
2. Editor(s), compiler(s) as author: Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone;1996
3. Chapter in a book: Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management.2nd ed.New York: Raven Press; 1995. pp. 465-78.

Electronic Sources as reference
Journal article on the Internet

Tables & Figures

• Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material.
• Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable.
• Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
• Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.
• For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||,¶ , **, ††, ‡‡
• Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. The tables along with their number should be cited at the relevant place in the text.
• Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
• Images need to be sent in JPEG format, size should not exceed 4 MB in size.
• The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size.

Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy

Sending a revised manuscript

Manuscript submission, processing and publication charges

The editorial policy is subject to periodic modifications by the decision taken on Annual General Meetings.

Copyrights

Checklist

Covering letter

• Signed by all contributors
• Previous publication / presentations mentioned
• Source of funding mentioned
• Conflicts of interest disclosed
• Ethical clearance declaration given

Authors

• Last name and given name provided along with Middle name initials (where applicable)
• Author for correspondence, with e-mail address provided
• Number of contributors restricted as per the instructions
• Identity not revealed in paper except title page (e.g. name of the institute in Methods, citing previous study as 'our study', names on figures etc.)

Presentation and format

• Double spacing A4 size paper
• MS word file in Times New Roman font
• Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides
• Page numbers included at bottom
• Title page contains all the desired information
• Running title provided (not more than 50 characters)
• Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript
• Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)
• The references cited in the text should be after punctuation marks, in superscript with square bracket.
• References according to the journal's instructions, punctuation marks checked

Language and grammar

• Uniformly American English
• Write the full term for each abbreviation at its first use in the title, abstract, keywords and text separately unless it is a standard unit of measure.
• Numerals at the beginning of the sentence spelt out
• Check the manuscript for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors
• If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country).
• Species names should be in italics

Tables and figures

• No repetition of data in tables and graphs and in text
• Actual numbers from which graphs drawn provided
• Figures necessary and of good quality (colour)
• Table and figure numbers in Arabic letters (not Roman)
• Labels pasted on back of the photographs (no names written)
• Figure legends provided (not more than 40 words)
• Patients’ privacy maintained (if not permission taken)
• Credit note for borrowed figures/tables provided
• Write the full term for each abbreviation used in the table as a footnote

Contributors' form

1. copyright;
2. The right to grant permission to republish the article in whole or in part, with or without fee;
3. The right to produce preprints or reprints and translate into languages other than English for sale or free distribution; and
4. The right to republish the work in a collection of articles in any other mechanical or electronic format.