Author Guidelines

The Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care subscribes to the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals’ as published in the New England Journal of Medicine 1997; 336: 309-316.

The Journal will publish the following types of contributions: Original research reports; Critical and analytical reviews; Case reports; Short research reports; Editorials and Commentaries commissioned by the editorial board; Letters to the editor, related to materials previously published in the Journal; Book reviews; Reports of professional conferences and meetings; Continuing education.

Submissions will be considered on the understanding that:

• Materials are original, unpublished, not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and the studies have been subjected to appropriate ethical review.
• The authors accept to transfer copyright of accepted and published articles to the Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care. Therefore, a letter stating this must be signed by all authors and submitted with manuscripts.
• Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders to reproduce any material for which copyright already exists.

The editors cannot correspond about papers considered unsuitable for publication and their decision is final. Neither the editors nor the publishers accept responsibility for the views of authors expressed in the research.

Submission of manuscript(s) can be done by email or online through the journal website.

Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care
E-mail: editorjcmphc@gmail.com
Journal website: https://jcmphc.org/ 

Manuscripts

General: Documents must be double-spaced with one (1”) inch margins, right hand side should not be justified and font size should be 12pt. Submissions are acceptable in British or American English. The editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity. In addition, manuscripts should conform to the Journal’s style; note that manuscripts will not be reviewed until they are compliant.

The paper should be divided into the following sections:

Abstract and keywords: An abstract of maximum 250 words must be included with up to six keywords. The abstract should be structured into the following sub-sections: background, methods, results and conclusion. Short articles, letters to the editor, commentaries and reviews need not follow this format. The abstract word count should be provided.   

Text: The cover page should include the following: article title, corresponding author details (affiliation, full postal address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address). The full names, affiliations and contact details of the co-authors should also be clearly indicated. Please ensure that these details are printed on the cover page only, and do not appear on any other page of the manuscript.

Subsequent pages should follow this order: abstract, keywords, main text, acknowledgement (on a separate page) references, appendix, figure captions, tables and figures. Do not place tables or figures in the main text.

The full word-count must include all text, including that in the tables, figures, references, etc. All pages must be numbered in the bottom right-hand corner. The main text should be arranged in this order: Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion with each starting on a new page.

References:  The Vancouver style of referencing should be used. References should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. These numbers should be inserted above the line (superscript) after a full stop on each occasion a reference is cited (e.g. as noted in similar studies 1, 2). Numbered references should appear at the end of the article, typed double-spaced and should include the names and initials of all authors. The format of referencing should be as published by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the British Medical Journal, 1998, volume 296, pages 401-405. Examples are provided below:

1.     Journal articles

• All authors should be listed where they are six or less; if more than six, then list the first six and follow by et al.

Hogan MC, Foreman KJ, Naghavi M, Ahn SY, Wang M, Makela SM et al. Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980-2008: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5. Lancet 2010; 375(9726): 1609-1623

• Corporate Body/Organisation as Author

International Steering Committee. Uniform requirement for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Br. Med. J. 1962; 284: 1766-1770

            (c)  No author

                  What happened to growth monitoring? [Editorial]. Lancet 1992; ii: 149

2. Books

• Books with personal authors

Hosmar DW, Lameshow S. Applied Logistic Regression. 2^nd edition. New York: Wiley Series; 2004

• Chapters with personal authors

Adesanya CA, Parry EHO, Larbi EB. The heart and circulation. In: Parry EHO (Ed) Principles of Medicine in Africa. 2^nd Edition, Oxford ELBS/Oxford University Press; 1984; 645-704.

• Chapters with no authors

Respiratory Medicine. In: Tasker RC, McClure RJ, Acerini CL. (Eds). Oxford Handwork of Paediatrics, Oxford; 2010. 262-305

3. Internet resources

Thind A, Mohani A, Banerjee K, Hagigi F. Where to deliver? Analysis of choice of delivery location from a national survey in India. BMC Public Health 2008; 8: 29 [cited March 21, 2009] Available from: URL: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/29)

NOTE: Authors should include the Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) of referenced articles in the reference section for all articles cited.

Acknowledgement: In this section, authors should acknowledge those who have not met the authorship criteria as outlined below.

Conflict of interest: Authors should declare any conflict of interest.

Contributions to joint publication: A statement on the contribution of individual authors to joint publication should be declared in this section.

Policy on authorship criteria: Only individuals who made major contributions to the writing of the manuscript should be listed as authors. In addition, all authors listed on the manuscript should have contributed significantly to the conceptualization, design, collection, collation or analysis and interpretation of the data. All authors should have been involved in the writing of the manuscript at draft and any revision stage. Also, they must have read and approved the final version. Other individual(s) involved in the research should be listed in the acknowledgement section. Any change in authorship (including author order) after the initial manuscript submission must be approved in writing by all authors.

Tables and Illustrations: All tables and figures should be submitted on separate sheets of paper and should be clearly labelled. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and be given a suitable caption. Vertical and horizontal internal lines should be excluded. Tables should complement and not duplicate results already presented in the manuscript. Footnotes to the table should be typed below the table and should be referred to by using superscript lowercase letters. All illustrations should be provided in camera-ready form, suitable for reproduction (which may include reduction) without retouching. Photographs, charts and diagrams are to be referred to as ‘figure(s)’ and   should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred. Indicate the appropriate places in the text where the tables and figures should be inserted.

Peer review process: All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are sent to at least two independent experts in that field for review. Manuscripts with significant statistical component will be reviewed by a statistician in addition to the above peer review. The comments of the reviewers will be communicated to the authors, even if the paper is rejected. All efforts will be made to ensure that the review process is as short as possible.

Charges: All manuscript submitted for publication shall attract a processing charge of five thousand naira (₦5,000.00) at the time of submission of the manuscript and a publication charge of forty thousand naira (₦40,000.00) if the article is accepted for publication. The charges should be paid to the Journal account with United Bank for Africa (UBA). The account detail is as follows:

Bank: UBA Plc, OAU Ile-Ife
Account Name: Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria
Account Number: 1015504404
Bank Sort Code: 033291640

Contributors are to scan the teller and send as attachment to the Editor-in-Chief.

Policy on plagiarism

Authors are warned against plagiarism and other forms of fraudulent behavior. Where it is established that authors have submitted plagiarized manuscript(s) or are involved in other forms of fraudulent behavior, the editors, after thorough investigation, shall issue a rejoinder on the plagiarized or fraudulent article in the next edition of the journal even if the article was published in an earlier edition of the journal.

Access policy: Full text articles of the Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care is available free online at AJOL. http://www.ajol.info/index.php/jcmphc and https://jcmphc.org/

Indexing: African Journals Online; Cross Ref; Asian Digital Library; Google Scholar; IJI Factor

For more information or enquiries, contact the Editorial office:

Prof. Kikelomo Ololade Wright, MBChB, MPH, MD, FMCPH
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care (JCMPHC)
Department of Community Health and Primary Health Care
Lagos State University College of Medicine
1-5 Oba Akinjobi Road, Ikeja GRA
Lagos State, Nigeria
Email: editorjcmphc@gmail.com