International Journal of Circumpolar Health - Instructions for authors and reviewers

Instructions

REVIEWERS

Instructional quide for peer reviewers of biomedical journals

AUTHORS

General guidelines for authors submitting material to biomedical journals
Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Vancouver system) by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

Assignment of originality and transfer of copyrights form:
[RTF] [PDF]

International Journal of Circumpolar Health

Scope and purpose
The International Journal of Circumpolar Health is published by the International Association of Circumpolar Health Publishers. The journal follows the tradition initiated by its predecessor, Arctic Medical Research. The journal specializes in circumpolar health. It provides a forum for many disciplines, including the biomedical sciences, social sciences, and humanities as they relate to human health in high latitude environments. The journal has a particular interest in the health of indigenous peoples. It is a vehicle for dissemination and exchange of knowledge among researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and those they serve.

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS OF IJCH

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to the International Journal of Circumpolar Health should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethics committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that participants gave informed consent before the study.

Potential for conflict of interest
The potential for conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer or editor has financial or personal relationships that may influence his or her actions. Authors are specifically asked to reflect on financial as well as other forms of conflict of interest, including personal, academic and intellectual issues.

At the end of the text, under a subheading “Conflict of interest statement” all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could potentially influence the results or interpretation of the work being submitted for consideration.

Copyright
Accepted papers become the copyright of the International Journal of Circumpolar Health and are accepted with the understanding that they have not been published, are not been considered for publication elsewhere and are subject to editorial revision. If papers closely related to the submitted manuscript have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere, the author must state this in the cover letter.

One author, on behalf of all co-authors, must sign a statement to the effect that the submitted manuscript is original and that she/he accepts full responsibility for releasing the material to the journal. The affirmation of originality and transfer of copyrights form should be sent to the Editorial Office in association with submitting a manuscript.

Peer-review

All manuscripts intended for publication will be subject to peer-review. The corresponding author is asked to submit the names and addresses (including telephone, fax, or e-mail, if available) of 2-3 experts, who may be asked to referee the submitted manuscript, but who should not work in the same institute as the author(s) of the submitted manuscript.

TYPES OF PAPERS

The regular sections of the journal include: Original research, Reviews, Editorials, Letters to the Editor, Short communications, Circumpolar Voices, Society News and Notices, Book Reviews and abstracts of recent circumpolar dissertations. Special issues on selected topics may be published from time to time.

Letter to the Editor is limited to 300 words and encourages discussion and/or criticism related to a scientific paper published in the journal within six months of receiving the letter. The author of the original paper will be invited to provide a response. The provided text may include one table or illustration and a maximum of three references. The Editor retains the rights to review and/or publish the submitted material.

Short communications describe new interesting findings, working practices or techniques and are limited to 600 words. They should contain the same sections as the original research articles, with one figure or table, and a maximum of three references.

Review articles are scholarly reviews of the literature on some important topic within the scope of the journal. The maximum length of reviews is 1.5 x the length of original research articles (see below). Review articles may contain up to 100 references.

Original articles represent papers that report the results of original quantitative or qualitative health research. The length of the paper should not exceed a total of 3500 words (ca. 8 printed pages).

Circumpolar Voices represent opinions, reports from expert meetings, recommendations, presentation of major research programs, as well as other relevant health information from governmental sources, such as research institutes, international scientific experts committees and organizations. The texts of this section are targeted to decision-makers, stakeholders, researchers and other health experts. The length of this section should not exceed 2000 words.

PREPARING YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Non-native English, or American, authors are advised to ask a native English language speaker, preferably familiar with the scientific, medical and/or technical language employed, to check the language prior to submission of their manuscript.

The first page of the manuscript should carry the title of the paper, and the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s), with precise postal address. The title length should not exceed 160 characters (incl. spaces). The authors should also suggest a short (running) title of no more than 50 characters (incl. spaces). The full name of each author should be provided and the family name (surname) should be underlined. If the authors have different affiliations, numerals in superscript (e.g. 1,2) should be used to link each author with his/her corresponding institution. The name and full postal address of the author to whom reprint requests are to be addressed must be indicated.

The second page should contain an Abstract of 250 words divided into the following sections: Objectives, Study design, Methods, Results and Conclusions. The authors should also suggest a maximum of six keywords.

The remainder of the manuscript should be sub-divided as follows: INTRODUCTION, MATERIAL AND METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION and REFERENCES. If appropriate, a paragraph entitled Acknowledgements may be inserted between the DISCUSSION and REFERENCES sections.

Reference format

Each citation should materially advance the argument of the paper rather than being confirmatory or included for completeness. The recommended amount of references in original articles is ca. 30-40.

In the text, cited references must be numbered, using Arabic numerals in parentheses, in the order in which they appear. They must then be listed in the References section, in numerical order of appearance in the text (Vancouver system), with one reference to a number. The title of the journal should be abbreviated as in the list of journals indexed in the National Library of Medicine (NLM). If the reference includes up to six authors, all authors should be listed. For seven or more authors, list only the first three and add ‘et al.’

Following a few examples (from NLM’s Citing Medicine) of reference formats:

Journal articles:

Jun BC, Song SW, Park CS, Lee DH, Cho KJ, Cho JH. The analysis of maxillary sinus aeration according to aging process: volume assessment by 3-dimensional reconstruction by high-resolutional CT scanning. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2005;132(3):429-434.
Rastan S, Hough T, Kierman A, et al. Towards a mutant map of the mouse - new models of neurological, behavioural, deafness, bone, renal and blood disorders. Genetica 2004;122(1):47-49.

Book citations/entire book:

Jenkins PF. Making sense of the chest x-ray: a hands-on guide. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005. 194 p.

Book citations/chapter in a book:

Whiteside TL, Heberman RB. Effectors of immunity and rationale for immunotherapy. In: Kufe DW, Pollock RE, Weichselbaum RR, Bast RC Jr, Gansler TS, Holland JF, Frei E 3rd, editors. Cancer medicine 6. Hamilton (ON): BC Decker Inc; 2003. p. 221-228.

Internet citations/book:

Richardson ML. Approaches to differential diagnosis in musculoskeletal imaging [Internet]. Version 2.0. Seattle (WA): University of Washington School of Medicine; c2000 [revised 2001 Oct 1; cited 2006 Nov 1]. Available from: http://www.rad.washington.edu/mskbook/index.html.

Internet citations/standard citations to a homepage:

AMA: helping doctors help patients [Internet]. Chicago: American Medical Association; c1995-2007 [cited 2007 Feb 22]. Available from: http://www.ama-assn.org/.

For more samples of reference citation formats, authors should consult NLM’s Citing Medicine at www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine

Units and Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be spelled out the first time they are used in the manuscript; less common abbreviations should also be spelled out in tables and figures. All units should be expressed according to the modern metric system (SI).

Illustrations should not exceed 120 mm (width) x 180 mm (height). Original, non-mounted, high-quality artwork, computer prints and photographs (b/w, or grayscale), but not negatives, or photocopies, are acceptable. Illustrations must be prepared on separate sheets (one figure per page); they should not be embedded in the text. Illustrations must be saved in ‘tif’, or ‘EPS’ formats, with a resolution of 300 dpi. The authors are asked to suggest a preferred location for the figure by making an annotation in the text (e.g. place Figure 1 here). Illustrations should be numbered with Arabic numerals (e.g. 1, 2, etc.). Each figure should be accompanied by a descriptive legend. Figure legends must not be included in the figure itself, but should be grouped together and typed on a separate sheet.

Tables should be self-explanatory and complementary to the text. They should have their own title, be numbered with Roman numerals (e.g. I, II, etc.), and must be typed on separate sheets (one sheet per table). The preferred location for the table may be indicated by making an annotation in the text (e.g. place Table I here). Tables should be designed using three parallel, horizontal lines: the table number and title should be placed above the first line, column headings above the second line, and all of the data above the third line. Brief explanations may be added below the third line. Tables should not exceed 80 characters in width (including spaces) and occupy more than 50 lines. Tables must be created employing the tabulation function: do not use the spacebar to align table columns. Any descriptions detailing data in the table should be presented as footnotes. Table footnotes should be listed in order of their appearance and identified by consecutive lowercase letters (a,b,c,d etc.)

Under special circumstances the author may submit a request to add tables or figures to the journal’s website which would add value to the articles. These will be published as supplementary material on the journal’s website.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

The corresponding author is responsible for understanding and adhering to these instructions. The Editorial Office may decline to review manuscripts that do not meet the criteria and requirements for content, style, language or format.

Authors should ensure that their submission includes the following material:

Cover letter including suggestions of 2-3 potential expert reviewers
Assignment of originality and transfer of copyrights (copyright form)
Manuscript including conflict of interest statement and ethics statement as appropriate
Figures as separate files

Manuscripts should be preferably submitted electronically via e-mail (ijch@oulu.fi). Text files must be created using a MS-Word, or WordPerfect word processor (‘doc’ or ‘rtf’ files). If other operating systems are employed (e.g. MacIntosh), texts must be saved as ‘rtf’ files.

Address to the Editorial Office:
International Association of Circumpolar Health Publishers
c/o Institute of Health Sciences
PO Box 5000
90014 University of Oulu
FINLAND

Phone: +358 8 537 5664
Fax: +358 8 537 5661

Email: ijch@oulu.fi
Journal website: http://www.ijch.fi

Advertisements. The journal will carry advertisements of commercial products, services, exhibitors etc. Interested persons are invited to contact the editorial office for details.