Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

Files of manuscripts containing original material are accepted for consideration with the understanding that neither the article nor any part of its essential substance, tables, or figures has been or will be published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This restriction does not apply to abstracts or short press reports published in connection with scientific meetings. Copies of any closely related manuscripts should be submitted along with the manuscript that is to be considered by the EBPH.

EBPH discourages the submission of more than one article dealing with related aspects of the same study. (See editorial note on policy on duplicate publication, Eur J Public Health 1994;4(2):79-80.)

The submitted paper might be provisionally approved for the content but might require a substantial revision of the language. In that case the authors agree that they will ask an English mother tongue to read the manuscript, and edit according to the requests by the editors.

 

Length of contributions

Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health publishes:

Editorials – The EBPH editorials are written in house by the journal's Editorial Team. Editorials should be about 900 words.

Papers – Papers report the results of original quantitative or qualitative public health research.

Full length papers should only in exceptional cases exceed 3000 words and under no circumstances be more than 4000 words.

The word limit does not include text in the abstract (max. 250 words), headings, references, figures and tables.

A maximum of six tables/figures is allowed.

Short reports should not exceed 1200 words and under no circumstances be more than 1500 words. A maximum of two tables or illustrations is allowed. Abstracts of short reports should be no longer than 100 words.

Please follow the appropriate reference studies listed above if you are submitting a manuscript of:

  • a systematic review or meta-analysis of randomised trials and other evaluation studies: PRISMA guidelines (these have superceded the QUOROM guidelines. Submit as a supplemental file the study protocol, if there is one).
  • a meta-analysis of observational studies: MOOSE guidelines (submit as a supplemental file the study protocol, if there is one)
  • a randomised controlled trial: CONSORT guidelines (include the trial protocol, and the registration details of the trial. In accordance with ICMJE uniform requirements, trials commenced after July 2005 must have been registered prospectively before patient recruitment; for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable but only if done before submission of the manuscript to the journal.
  • a study of diagnostic accuracy: STARD guidelines
  • an observational study: STROBE guidelines (and submit as a supplemental file the study protocol, if there is one)
  • an observational study in genetic epidemiology: STREGA
  • a health economics paper: BMJ’s health economics checklist
  • a clinical guidelines paper: we would encourage you to follow the GRADE guidance for grading evidence, but will not insist on this.

Narrative reviews – Narrative reviews cannot be submitted unless invited by the Editor(s).

Commentaries – Commentaries are opinion pieces or reflections on papers previously or currently published in the Italian Journal of Public Health, or on issues regarding public health science or policy. The format is free but it seems like an essay. No abstract is necessary, but the sections of the manuscript should be as follows: title
page
main text
acknowledgements
conflict of interest statement
references.

The main text should not exceed 1300 words. The maximum number of references is 10.

Letters – Letters to the editor should be about 450 words and do not need an abstract. However, a short heading should be suggested.

Book reviews – Book reviews should be about 450 words.

 

Permissions

Authors are reminded that it is their responsibility to comply with copyright laws.

It is essential to ensure that no parts of the submission have or are due to appear in other publications without prior permission from the copyright holder and the original author. Materials, e.g tables, taken from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement from both author and publisher giving permission to the IJPH for reproduction.

Patients' consent and permission to publish

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in your paper. Where there is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy - eg, in a clinical photograph or in case details - the patient's written consent, or that of the next of kin, to publication must be obtained. The authors have to send a signed consent form before publication. Consent must be obtained for all Case Reports and Clinical Pictures.

Manuscripts
Only articles in English are considered for publication. British spelling conventions (Oxford Dictionary) are used. Examples: standardise (not standardize), colour (not color), paediatrics (not pediatrics), foetal (not fetal), etc.

The text should be left justified and not hyphenated. Number pages consecutively, beginning with the title page. Begin each of the following sections on separate pages in the following order: title page, abstract and keywords, text, acknowledgements, references, tables (each table on a separate page, complete with title and footnotes), figure legends and figures.

Title page (begin on a separate page)

The title page should carry a) the title of the article, which should be concise but informative; b) first name, middle initial, and last name of each author, with highest academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation; c) name of department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed if not already stated under b); d) disclaimers, if any; e) name, address, telephone and fax numbers of author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript; f) source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, etc.; g) a word count of the whole manuscript; h) a short running head of no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces).

Abstract and keywords (one separate page)

Provide on a separate page a structured abstract of not more than 250 words under the following headings: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion. We are aware that not all manuscripts, e.g. qualitative papers, can be structured according to this principle. Add three to five key words or short phrases to the bottom of the abstract page, which will assist us in indexing the article and which may be published with the abstract. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus when possible.

Text (begin on separate page)

The text should usually be divided into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. More information on the structure of these sections can be found in the Uniform Requirements for manuscripts (available upon request).

Tables and illustrations

Figures have to be black and white and professionally designed. Three-dimensional figures are not allowed. Photocopied figures are not acceptable, however, laser prints are usually of acceptable quality. Symbols, lettering, and numbering should be clear and large enough to remain legible after the figure has been reduced to fit the width of a single column, i.e. 7 cm. Legends for illustrations should be typewritten (double-spaced) on a separate sheet and should not appear on the illustrations.

Abbreviations and footnotes

Do not use abbreviations in the title or the abstract. Except for units of measurement, abbreviations are discouraged. Use only standard abbreviations. The first time an abbreviation appears it should be preceded by the words for which it stands. Footnotes are permitted only in tables. Use lower case characters - a, b, c, etc. - to indicate each footnote.

Units of measurement

Authors of articles must express all measurements in terms of the International System of Units (SI units), but they may include older conventional units in parentheses if they desire.

Numbers and percentages

All numbers in the text should be written in numeric form except numbers 0-10. Use % symbol instead of writing out the words per cent.

Drug names

Generic names should be used. Authors who wish to do so may insert brand names in parentheses.

Acknowledgements (one separate page)

A maximum of five printed lines (about 300 letters and spaces) are allowed for acknowledgements. All sources of funding for research must be explicitly stated. Other financial and material support, specifying the nature of the support, should be acknowledged as well. If the work has been presented orally previously, for example at a scientific meeting, then the name, place and date of the conference should be noted. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from persons acknowledged by name because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions.

Authorship

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the coauthors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Corresponding authors will be requested to sign an authorship statement. Increasingly, multicentre trials are attributed to a corporate author. Information identifying the author should appear only on the title page of the manuscript. Upon acceptance, all authors must certify that they will take public responsibility for the content and provide any relevant data upon request. All authors must also certify that they have contributed substantially to conception and design or analysis and interpretation of the data, drafting or revision of content, and approval of the final version. Authors should state whether they had assistance: participating investigators and other persons who helped developing the work, and do not qualify as authors (according to the URM guidelines) should all be listed in the Aknowledgement section of the manuscript.

References

References must be typed with double spacing and must be numbered consecutively as they are cited (Vancouver style). References first cited in tables or figure legends must be numbered so that they will be in sequence with references cited in the text. Authors are discouraged from citing material that is not commonly available, e.g., databases, patents, computer files etc. Numbered references to personal communications, unpublished data and manuscripts in preparation or submitted for publication are unacceptable. The style of references is that of Index Medicus. List all authors when there are six or fewer; when there are seven or more, list the first three, then 'et al'. Identify references in text with Arabic numerals in square brackets [ ].

Sample references are as follows:

Journal articles

  • Standard Journal article McIsaac SJ, Wilkinson RG. Income distribution and cause-specific mortality. Eur J Public Health 1997;7(1):45-53.
    As an option, if a journal carries continuous pagination throughout a volume the month and issue number may be omitted: McIsaac SJ, Wilkinson RG. Income distribution and cause-specific mortality. Eur J Public Health 1997;7:45-53. Goate AM, Haynes AR, Owen MJ, et al. Predisposing locus for Alzheimer's disease on chromosome 21. Lancet 1989;1:352-5
  • Organization as author The Royal Marsden Hospital Bone-marrow Transplantation Team. Failure of syngeneic bone-marrow graft without preconditioning in post-hepatitis marrow aplasia. Lancet 1977;2:742-4.
  • No author given Coffee drinking and cancer of the pancreas [editorial]. BMJ 1981;283:628.
  • Article in a foreign language As above. Include an English translation in parentheses after the original title.
  • Volume with supplement Magni F, Rossoni G, Berti F. BN-52021 protects guinea-pig from heart anaphylaxis. Pharmacol Res Commun 1988;20 Suppl 5:75-8.
  • Issue with supplement Gardos G, Cole JO, Haskell D, Marby D, Paine SS, Moore P. The natural history of tardive dyskinesia. J Clin Psychopharmacol 1988;8(4 Suppl):31S-37S.
  • Volume with part Hanly C. Metaphysics and innateness: a psychoanalytic perspective. Int J Psychoanal 1988;69(Pt 3):389-99.
  • Issue with part Edwards L, Meyskens F, Levine N. Effect of oral isotretinoin on dysplastic nevi. J Am Acad Dermatol 1989;20(2 Pt 1):257-60.
  • Issue with no volume Baumeister AA. Origins and control of stereotyped movements. Monogr Am Assoc Ment Defic 1978;(3):353-84.
  • No issue or volume Danoek K. Skiing in and through the history of medicine. Nord Medicinhist Êrsb 1982:86-100.
  • Pagination in roman numerals Ronne Y. Ansvarsfall. Blodtransfusion till fel patient. V...rdfacket 1989;13:XXVI-XXVII.
  • Type of article indicated as needed La Vecchia C, Parazzini F, Levi F. Perinatal and infant mortality: a worldwide issue [editorial]. Eur J Public Health 1996;6:157-8. Fuhrman SA, Joiner KA. Binding of the third component of complement C3 by Toxoplasma gondii [abstract]. Clin Res 1987;35:475A.
  • Article containing retraction Shishido A. Retraction notice: Effect of platinum compounds on murine lymphocyte mitogenesis [Retraction of Alsabti EA, Ghalib ON, Salem MH. In: Jpn J Med Sci Biol 1979;32:53-65). Jpn J Med Sci Biol 1980;33:235-7.
  • Article retracted Alsabti EA, Ghalib ON, Salem MH. Effect of platinum compounds on murine lymphocyte mitogenesis [Retracted by Shishido A. In: Jpn J Med Sci Biol 1980;33:235-7). Jpn J Med Sci Biol 1979;32:53-65.
  • Article containing comment Piccoli A, Bossatti A. Early steroid therapy in IgA neuropathy: still an open question [comment]. Nephron 1989;51:289-91. Comment on: Nephron 1988;48:12-7.
  • Article commented on Kobayashi Y, Fujii K, Hiki Y, Tateno S, Kurokawa A, Kamivama M. Steroid therapy in IgA nephropathy: a retrospective study in heavy proteinuric cases [see comments]. Nephron 1988;48:12-7. Comment in: Nephron 1989;51:289-91.
  • Article with published erratum Schofield A. The CAGE questionnaire and psychological health [published erratum appears in Br J Addict 1989;84:701). Br J Addict 1988;83:761-4.

 

Books and other monographs

  • Personal author(s) Colson JH, Armour WJ. Sports injuries and their treatment. 2nd rev ed. London: S Paul, 1986. Editor(s), compiler as author Diener HC, Wilkinson M, editors. Drug-induced headache. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988. Organization as author and publisher Virginia Law Foundation. The medical and legal implications of AIDS. Charlottesville: The Foundation, 1987.
  • Chapter in a book Weinstein L, Swartz MN. Pathologic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA Jr, Sodeman WA, editors. Pathologic physiology: mechanisms of disease. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1974:457-72.
  • Conference proceedings Vivian VL, editor. Child abuse and neglect: a medical community response. Proceedings of the First AMA National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect; 1984 Mar 30-31; Chicago. Chicago: American Medical Association, 1985.
  • Conference paper Harley NH. Comparing radon daughter dosimetric and risk models. In: Gammage RB, Kaye SV, editors. Indoor air and human health. Proceedings of the Seventh Life Sciences Symposium; 1984 Oct 29-31; Knoxville (TN). Chelsea (MI): Lewis, 1985:69-78.
  • Scientific or technical report Akutsu T. Total heart replacement device. Bethesda (MD): National Institutes of Health, National Heart and Lung Institute; 1974 Apr. Report No.: NIH-NHLI-69-2185-4.
  • Dissertation Youssef NM. School adjustment of children with congenital heart disease [dissertation]. Pittsburgh (PA): Univ of Pittsburgh, 1988. Patent Harred JF, Knight AR, McIntyre JS, inventors. Dow Chemical Company, assignee. Epoxidation process. US patent 3,654,317. 1972 Apr 4.

 

Other published material

  • Newspaper article Rensberger B, Specter B. CFCs may be destroyed by natural process. The Washington Post 1989 Aug 7;Sect A:2(col 5).
  • Audiovisual AIDS epidemic: the physician's role [videorecording]. Cleveland (OH): Academy of Medicine of Cleveland, 1987.
  • Computer file Renal system [computer program]. MS-DOS version. Edwardsville (KS): Medi-Sim, 1988.
  • Legal material Toxic Substances Control Act: Hearing on S.776 Before the Subcomm. on the Environment of the Senate Comm. on Commerce. 94th Congr., 1st Sess. 343 (1975).
  • Map Scotland [topographic map]. Washington: National Geographic Society (US), 1981.
  • Book of the Bible Ruth 3:1-18. The Holy Bible. Authorised King James version. New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1972.
  • Dictionary and similar references Ectasia. Dorland's illustrated medical dictionary. 27th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1988:527.
  • Classical material The Winter's Tale: act 5, scene 1, lines 13-16. The complete works of William Shakespeare. London: Rex, 1973.
  • Web page Department of Health. The NHS Health Technology Assessment Program. Available from: http://www.hta.nhsweb.nhs.uk [Accessed February 6, 2007]. (If there is no author of the citation or the organisation it belongs to, begin with the title of the webpage).
  • Unpublished material accepted for publication Lillywhite HD, Donald JA. Pulmonary blood flow regulation in an aquatic snake. Science, in press.

 

Competing interest (CI) statement
It is the policy of the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health and its various boards and committees to ensure that members in all of their activities avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest resulting from their activities as members of committees or boards of the association. In particular, no persons should obtain or appear to obtain special advantages for themselves, their relatives, or their close associates as a result of their services on a board or committee. 

Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health considers very important that conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest be avoided in the process of acceptation of the submitted papers.

  • Persons who wrote the paper should not make evaluations about their articles with the referees. For such a reason the peer review is made by double blind method.
  • Persons should also abstain from evaluation of a submitted paper if they are a relative of, spouse of, or have a significant personal relationship with the members of the editorial staff.
  • It is not appropriate for members of the editorial staff, peer reviewers and members of various boards and committees and award committee, for their own personal purposes, to make specific use of or publicize any confidential information which may have been reading the submitted papers. It is also not appropriate for all these persons to utilize the results of the researches described in the submitted papers without the necessary permissions. This is, however, to be distinguished from the entirely appropriate benefit obtained by referees, boards and committees who become better acquainted with collaboration with Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health
  • Persons knowing that a paper of which they are the author will be submitted for peer review, should withdraw from the referees.
  • Persons should withdraw from the Boards members, Editorial Staff and referees if they are a relative of, spouse of, or have a significant personal relationship with the author of any submitted paper.
  • Persons who are from the same academic institution as the author of a submitted book should abstain from providing evaluations of that paper as referee.
  • All submissions must include disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. The Editor may use such information as a basis for editorial decisions, and will publish such disclosures in the published manuscript. 
  • Peer reviewers and handling editor are required to provide a CI Statement and that they not participate in reviewing any article when they have potential conflicting interests.
  • All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgment at the end of the text.

When reporting experiments on human subjects, Authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the Authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

Patients' consent and permission to publish

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in your paper. Where there is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy - eg, in a clinical photograph or in case details - the patient's written consent, or that of the next of kin, to publication must be obtained.

The authors have to send a signed consent form before publication. Consent must be obtained for all Case Reports and Clinical Pictures.

Statements of Human and Animal Rights

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

This statements should be applied to all original papers, including original research, brief reports, case reports and also for comments on clinical trial, published on Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health.

Plagiarism Policy

EBPH do not accept manuscripts with plagiarized material. For the purposes of this policy, plagiarism is defined as the use of previously authored works - including text, data, and images - of others or self without proper attribution.

Journal editors will respond to plagiarism at their discretion. Actions taken will be based on the severity of the plagiarism attempt, but can include corrections to or retractions of the published article, the author being banned from publishing in the journal. 

 

Original articles

Politica di default della sezione

Statistical Methods

In order to submit an article, authors are requested to download the LaTeX template from here.

We thank very much Dr Lucio De Capitani, from the University of Milan-Bicocca, for the help provided in preparing the template and related files.

The Healing Power of the Media

Editors

  • Fabio Turone

Copyright Notice

• The authors warrant that the manuscript (or its essential substance) has not been published in any language or format and has not been submitted elsewhere for print or electronic publication consideration

• The authors warrant that the manuscript does not contain any material the publication of which would violate any copyright or other personal or proprietary right of any person or entity

• The authors warrant that there aren’t potential conflicts of interest

• The authors will obtain and include with the manuscript written permission from any respective copyright owners for the use of any textual, illustrative, or tabular materials that have been previously published or are otherwise copyrighted and owned by third parties.

Privacy Statement

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to informs readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.
This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The author s published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.
Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.