Author guidelines
Interdisciplinary Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health- iJEPH is a scientific journal published by the Universidad Libre, Cali, Colombia. The peer-reviewed journal that follows the editorial guidelines and editorial process proposed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/) and ethical considerations contemplated in the editorial process and research publications (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/) and adheres to the recommendations of the Publication Ethics Committee (COPE) (http://publicationethics .org) and follow WAME's recommendations for the use of artificial intelligence during research and article writing (https://wame.org/page3.php?id=106). About the responsibilities of the members of the editorial committee and the editorial process, they have complete independence from the University and any public or private institution (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/journal- owners-and-editorial-freedom.html).
Articles submitted
All articles submitted to iJEPH will be screened for plagiarism and will be sent for external peer review; They may also be evaluated by suitable professors of the institution. This process is under the principles established for peer review established in:
Reception of articles
The article must be submitted to the journal directly to the Open Journal System platform (https://revistas.unilibre.edu.co/index.php/iJEPH/index) where the author must create an account and select the author option to be able to submit the article. Do you already have a username and password?
Go to identification. Don't you have an account with the journal?
Go to registration. Registration is required to send articles online and track their status.
Rules for authors
Preparation of the original. The text of research articles should have the following structure: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. In some articles, it is convenient to subdivide the sections: Materials and Methods and Discussion in subsections for greater clarity of the content.
For reviews and editorials, a different structure is needed.
The text of the article should be in a single column, in Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman font, size 12 and 1.5 space should be used throughout the article, including the title pages, abstract, text, acknowledgments, authors' contribution, financing, conflict of interest, references, tables, and legends. Pages and lines should be numbered consecutively, starting with the title page.
Title page: The title page will contain:
Title in Spanish and English. It should summarize the paper's main idea in a simple manner and with an appropriate style. Very long titles are not accepted.
Authors: They should be in a separate file from where the article is located. The name of each of the authors, together with their highest academic degree and institutional affiliation; position in the institution; name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed. This same information should be included in the metadata (OJS) in the same order of authorship in which they were placed in the document.
It should include a paragraph specifying each author's contribution to the manuscript.
The address of the author responsible for correspondence and institutional e-mail, the origin of the support received in the form of grants, equipment, and drugs. A conflict of interest statement should be included.
Authors should describe their participation in the manuscript: Conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, resources, software, supervision, validation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing
Other persons who contribute to the work and who are not considered authors can be cited in the acknowledgments section.
Posting a conflict of interest statement
Notas: review wame's recommendations for Chatbots and generative artificial intelligence in relation to academic publishing (https://wame.org/page3.php?id=106)
Author information should be entered in the metadata (OJS), in the same order of authorship in which they were placed in the document.
Abstract and Keywords: In Spanish and English, structured: the subtitles that the abstract should have: background, objective, methods, results, and conclusions. These subtitles should be in bold and preceded by a colon. It should not exceed 250 words. Do not include any bibliographic citation. Avoid acronyms. Emphasis should be placed on those aspects of the study or observations that are more novel or of greater importance. Immediately after the abstract, the authors should present and identify, as such, between 6-10 keywords in Spanish (DECs terms) and English (MESH terms) that will facilitate the expert's documentary analysis of the article and that will be published together with the abstract. The keywords in Spanish and English should be MESH terms (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh) (minimum 5, maximum 10) and the equivalent in Spanish DECs terms.
Authors should include in the paper where the key contribution of the study should be highlighted. completing the following items:
Objective:
Design of the study:
Sources of information:
Population/sample:
Statistical analysis:
Main findings:
Note: should not exceed one-quarter page.
Introduction. It should contain the background of the proposed topic, knowledge gaps, justification of the study, and the objective. Remember that the article's first evaluation will be made against the objective. Support with adequate bibliographic references, updated and/or important for the field of knowledge.
Materials and Methods. It should be well specified, with as much detail as possible, without transcribing already standardized methods, for which you should use the most pertinent reference and summarize this particular methodology. The methods section should carefully specify the meaning of the terms used and detail exactly how the data were collected. Describe the methods, apparatus (provide the name of the manufacturer and city in parentheses), and procedures followed in sufficient detail so that other investigators can reproduce the findings.
In the case of review articles, include a section describing the methods used to locate, select, collect, and synthesize the data. These methods should also be described in the abstract of the article.
Ethics. In the case of studies involving human subjects, indicate whether the ethical standards of the committee (institutional or regional) in charge of supervising the project and the Helsinki Declaration were followed. The presentation of original Colombian research should comply with Resolution 8430 of 1993 of the Ministry of Social Protection and research from other countries should be governed by the Declaration of Helsinki. In all cases, the approval of the institutional research ethics committee must be attached.
Statistics. Describe the statistical methods in sufficient detail so that a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data can verify the reported findings. As far as possible, quantify them and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error (such as confidence intervals). Avoid exclusive reliance on hypothesis-testing statistical tests, such as the use of P-values, which do not provide any important quantitative information. Discuss the inclusion criteria for experimental subjects. Provide details on the process followed in the random distribution. Describe the masking methods followed. Record the complications of the treatment. Specify the number of observations made. Indicate losses of observational subjects (such as dropouts in a clinical trial). Whenever possible, references on study design and statistical methods should be from current papers (where page numbers are indicated) rather than from the original articles when they were first described. Specify any commonly used computer programs that were used.
In the methods section include a general description of the methods used. When summarizing the data in the results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze the data. Avoid the non-technical and therefore erroneous use of technical statistical terms, such as "random" (referring to the use of a random distribution method), "normal", "significant", "correlations" and "sample". Define terms, abbreviations and most statistical symbols.
Results. They should be in accordance with the objective and the proposed methodology. Present the results in the text, Tables and Figures in a logical sequence. Do not repeat in the text the data presented in tables and figures; highlight or summarize only the most important observations. The article should be accompanied by the figures in jpg format with minimum 300 dpi or in eps format, the figure legends should not be included in the figure, they are placed in text in the Word document. Tables in Excel format in separate files for the final edition of the article.
Discussion. It should start with the main result obtained. Emphasizing the scope or not of the objective stated in the introduction. Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions derived from them. Data or other information already included in the introduction and results sections should not be repeated. Explain in the discussion what the results mean, the limitations of the study, as well as its usefulness and value in future research. The observations made will be compared with those of other relevant studies. Relate the conclusions with the objectives of the study, avoid poorly substantiated statements and conclusions insufficiently supported by the data. Do not cite unfinished work. New hypotheses may be proposed when justified, but should be clearly identified as such. Recommendations may be included when appropriate.
Conclusions. The main aspects of the article are highlighted but do not represent a summary of the article.
Acknowledgments. Include a list of all the people who collaborated, but who do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as technical help received, help in writing the manuscript or general support provided by the head of the department. Financial and material support received should also be included in the acknowledgments.
References. The Vancouver standard is followed. You can consult the page https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/library/public/vancouver.pdf
Vancouver Style 'How To' Guide (University of Queensland Library)
Tables. Do not present them in the form of figures; they should be editable. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and assign a brief title to each. The title should ensure that it can be interpreted if taken out of context. A brief heading should appear in each column. Precise explanations should be placed in footnotes, not in the table header. Unusual abbreviations used in each table should be specified in these footnotes, footnotes should be identified with signs. Identify statistical measures of variation, such as standard deviation, standard error of the mean. Do not draw horizontal or vertical lines inside the tables. Make sure that each table is cited in the text.
If the table includes data, published or unpublished, from another source, you must have the necessary authorization to reproduce them and you must mention this fact. The inclusion of an excessive number of tables in relation to the length of the text may hinder the composition of the pages.
Figures. Figures should be sent in jpg format with a minimum of 300 dpi or in eps format. Letters, numbers and symbols should be clear and uniform in all illustrations; they should also be of sufficient size to remain legible after the necessary reduction for publication. Titles and detailed explanations should be included in the captions of the illustrations and not in the illustrations themselves.
Figures should be numbered consecutively according to their first mention in the text. If the figure has been previously published, cite the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder for reproduction of the material (Editor of the journal). Such permission is required regardless of who the author or publisher is; the only exception is for documents in the public domain.
Figure legends. The figure legend should include an explanation that allows it to be taken out of context and interpreted. When symbols, arrows, numbers or letters are used to refer to certain parts of the illustrations, the meaning of each should be identified and clarified in the legend.
Units of measurement. The units of the decimal metric system shall be used, according to the International System of Units (SI). http://www.us-metric.org/commonly-used-metric-system-units-symbols-and-prefixes/
Abbreviations and symbols. Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. When an abbreviation is used for the first time in the text, it should be preceded by the full term, unless it is a common unit of measurement.
Types of published articles:
According to the type of article to be submitted to the journal, it should follow the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) guidelines:
Randomized controlled clinical trial - CONSORT
Observational studies - STROBE
Diagnostic/prognostic studies - STARD or TRIPOD
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses - PRISMA or MOOSE
Study protocols - SPIRIT or PRISMA-P
Case reports - CARE
Protocols/clinical practice guidelines - AGREE or RIGHT
Qualitative studies - COREQ (checklist) or SRQR
Preclinical animal studies - ARRIVE
Quality Improvement Studies - SQUIRE
Economic evaluation - CHEERS
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Editorial. A document written by the journal's editors. This type of document may contain announcements, summaries of the journal's content, the editor's position on a particular topic, and journal updates. It can also be an editorial to comment on an article included in the issue to be published.
Original articles. Original studies that provide novel information of general interest to the national and international scientific community.
Point of view or reflection. It is the analysis or interpretation of a fact or circumstance of reality that is of interest, making a careful analysis and a work of personal interpretation, issuing an opinion or value judgment about it.
Review article. These articles are critical evaluations of already published studies and research; they critically analyze the state of knowledge in a specific area or topic based on the published bibliography. It must have an objective in order to address the topic adequately. By organizing, integrating and evaluating previously published material, the author of this type of article considers the progress of research to clearly address a current problem. With this material the authors seek to define and clarify a research problem, synthesize previous studies to inform the reader about the status of a given research topic, and propose the steps to be taken to solve a problem.
Systematic review and meta-analysis. It is a synthesis article of the available evidence, in which a review of quantitative and qualitative aspects of primary studies is carried out, with the objective of summarizing the existing information on a particular topic.
Letter to the editor. Are discussions or criticisms of an article published in the journal; in certain circumstances they may be an extension of an article already published.
Brief policy
experiences
Peer review process
Articles published in iJEPH are peer-reviewed by academic peers who are selected for their recognized expertise in the subject matter.
Frequency of publication
It is a biannual journal with continuous publication
