Information For Authors

Interested in submitting to this journal? We recommend that you review the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the Author Guidelines. Authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can log in and begin the five-step process.

General Submission Requirements

Authors are required to:

  • Provide full affiliation details for all authors, including institutional name, full address, and email address

  • Clearly indicate the corresponding author(s)

Authorship criteria are based on the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to SJ Public Health Africa. Authorship implies full responsibility for the content of the article and compliance with the journal’s editorial and ethical policies.

For large, multi-centre or collaborative studies, only individuals who take direct responsibility for the manuscript should be listed as authors.

Author Contributions

Details of each author’s contribution must be provided using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) during submission. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section.

The involvement of professional medical writers or editorial assistance must be fully disclosed.

Title

Manuscripts should have a concise, specific, and informative title that accurately reflects the article's content.

Abstract

Abstracts must not exceed 300 words and should be structured as follows:

  • Background

  • Methods

  • Results

  • Conclusions

Citations should not be included in the abstract. Abbreviations should be minimized and defined at first use.

Keywords

Authors should provide up to eight (8) relevant keywords to improve the discoverability of the article.

Main Text

The structure of the main manuscript should be appropriate to the study design. For most research articles, the following format is recommended:

  • Introduction

  • Methods

  • Results

  • Discussion and/or Conclusions

Manuscripts should be written clearly and concisely to facilitate peer review and comprehension.

Reporting Standards

SJ Public Health Africa requires adherence to recognized reporting guidelines, including but not limited to:

  • CONSORT – Randomized controlled trials

  • PRISMA / PRISMA-P – Systematic reviews and meta-analyses

  • STROBE – Observational studies

  • CARE – Case reports

  • COREQ / SRQR – Qualitative research

  • ARRIVE – Animal studies

Relevant checklists and flow diagrams must be submitted as supporting files where applicable.

Reproducibility and Methods Transparency

The journal is committed to research transparency and reproducibility. Methods sections must provide sufficient detail to allow replication of the study, including:

  • Materials and procedures

  • Measures taken to control bias

  • Limitations of datasets

For antibodies, authors must report species, manufacturer, catalogue number, clonality, and validation status.

Where proprietary software is used, authors must identify an open-access alternative capable of performing an equivalent function. Custom code should be written in, or compatible with, open-source programming languages.

Authors are encouraged to use Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) where applicable.

Ethics and Consent

All research must be conducted within an appropriate ethical framework.

  • Studies involving humans or animals must state approval from a recognized ethics committee or institutional review board

  • Informed consent must be obtained for studies involving human participants, case reports, clinical images, or identifiable data

Authors must be prepared to provide ethics approval letters or consent documentation upon request.

Clinical Trials

For clinical trials, authors must provide:

  • Name of the trial registry

  • Registration number

  • Registration date

  • Public URL of the trial record

Trial registration details must be included in the Methods section.

Data and Software Availability

All manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement, even when no data are associated with the study.

For software articles, source code must be deposited in a public repository (e.g., GitHub) with licensing details clearly stated.

Grant Information

Authors must disclose all funding sources relevant to the submitted work, including funder name, grant number, and recipient.

If no external funding was received, authors should state:
“The authors declare that no grants were involved in supporting this work.”

Acknowledgments

This section should recognize contributors who do not qualify for authorship. Authors must obtain permission from all individuals named.

Funding information should not be included in the Acknowledgments section.

Supplementary and Extended Data

SJ Public Health Africa does not accept traditional supplementary materials. Supporting materials that enhance transparency (e.g., questionnaires, additional tables, images) should be submitted as extended data and deposited in an approved repository. These must be cited in the Data Availability Statement.

References

References must be formatted consistently and meet the following requirements:

  • Journal abbreviations should follow Index Medicus/MEDLINE standards

  • Preprints may be cited

  • Only published, in-press, or publicly available materials may be referenced

  • URLs should appear as hyperlinks in the text, not as reference entries

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to cite personal communications.

Figures and Tables

All figures and tables must be cited in the text and submitted according to journal specifications.

  • Figure legends and tables should appear at the end of the manuscript

  • Tables should be created using Word table tools or submitted as Excel files

  • Images must meet minimum resolution requirements and ethical standards

Written consent is required for identifiable images.

Image Integrity

Image adjustments must be applied uniformly and transparently. Any manipulation must not alter the scientific meaning of the data. All modifications must be disclosed in the Methods section.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism constitutes serious academic misconduct. This includes direct plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, and self-plagiarism.

All submissions to SJ Public Health Africa are screened using plagiarism detection software. Manuscripts with unacceptable similarity levels will be rejected without peer review.

Authors are strongly encouraged to conduct plagiarism checks prior to submission.

Copyright and Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reuse copyrighted material. All permissions must be submitted with the final manuscript, and appropriate acknowledgments must be included.

Reporting Plagiarism

Suspected cases of plagiarism should be reported to: [email protected] or [email protected]

Ethics Policy

SJ Public Health Africa is committed to maintaining the highest standards of research integrity, publication ethics, and professional conduct. All manuscripts submitted to the journal must comply with internationally accepted ethical principles for research involving humans, animals, and data.

For studies involving human participants, authors must confirm that the research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by a recognized institutional ethics committee or review board. A statement of ethical approval, including the name of the approving body and approval reference number (where applicable), must be included in the Methods section.

For studies involving animals, authors must confirm compliance with institutional, national, and international guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals, and ethical approval must be clearly stated.

For manuscripts involving identifiable personal data, clinical images, case reports, surveys, or interviews, authors must confirm that written informed consent was obtained from participants or their legal guardians. Authors must be prepared to provide documentation of ethical approval and consent upon request.

Clinical Trials Ethics

All clinical trials submitted to SJ Public Health Africa must be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible clinical trial registry. Trial registration details, including the registry name, registration number, and registration date, must be provided in the manuscript. Any deviations from the original study protocol must be clearly explained.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is considered a serious form of academic misconduct. SJ Public Health Africa defines plagiarism as the use of another person’s ideas, text, data, or intellectual property without appropriate acknowledgment. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Direct plagiarism

  • Mosaic or patchwork plagiarism

  • Self-plagiarism or redundant publication

All manuscripts submitted to the journal are screened for similarity using recognized plagiarism detection tools prior to peer review. Manuscripts found to contain unacceptable levels of similarity, plagiarism, or redundant publication will be rejected without further review.

Authors are strongly encouraged to conduct similarity checks before submission. By submitting a manuscript, authors confirm that the work is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under consideration by another journal.

Ethical Oversight and Corrections

Where ethical concerns, plagiarism, or research misconduct are identified after publication, SJ Public Health Africa reserves the right to take appropriate action, including issuing corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions, in line with international publication ethics standards.

Author Responsibility

All authors share collective responsibility for the integrity of the work. Submission of a manuscript to SJ Public Health Africa constitutes confirmation that the research was conducted ethically and reported honestly, accurately, and transparently.