Editorial and Peer Review Process: 

A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to RGUHS National Journal of Public Health alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. On submission, editors will review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review and plagiarism. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message will be rejected before proceeding for formal peer review. Manuscripts unlikely to be of interest to the RGUHS National Journal of Public Health readers will also be liable to be rejected at this stage. Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication in the RGUHS National Journal of Public Health is assigned to an editor of respective field of specialization. Editors send the manuscript to two or more expert reviewers. The journal follows a double-blind review process, where the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. The reviewers' comments and suggestions (acceptance/ rejection/amendments in the manuscript) are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript. After considering the final recommendations from the editors, the final decision on its publication it taken by Editor-in-chief.

Within 3 weeks, the authors will be informed about the reviewers’ comments and acceptance/rejection of their manuscript. Articles accepted would be copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. To avoid delays in publication, authors are advised to adhere closely to the instructions given below.

Types of Articles and Word Limits:

Original articles: Original articles include randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, outcome studies, cost-effectiveness analyses, casecontrol series, and surveys with high response rates. These articles must be written within 3000 words excluding references and abstract. A structured abstract of up to 250 words should be included with the following subheadings: Background, Aims/Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. The content of the original article should be structured as Title, Authors, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements, and References.

Review articles: Review articles include systemic critical assessments of literature and data sources. These kinds of articles must be written within 4000 words excluding references and abstract. An unstructured abstract of up to 250 words should be included.

Case reports or case studies: These should be short, decisive observations. These should be kept within 2000 words with not more than 15 references and up to 4 tables or figures. An unstructured abstract of up to 200 words should also be included. The content should have the following headings: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion, and References.

Short communications/brief reports: These follow a similar format as the Original Articles; however, the Results and Discussion sections in the main body of the text should be combined. The word count for Brief Reports should be kept within 1500 words in the main body of the text, with up to 15 references and not more than 2 tables or figures.

Letter to the editor/editorials: This can include comments on earlier publications, presenting data or findings in brief, expressing opinions on health-related issues, and communicating interesting case material. These should be of approximately 750-1000 words and not more than 10 references.

Preparation of Manuscript: Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals as recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ( http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) guidelines. The adherence to writing guidelines of the journal is important to uplift the quality of the publication. The general rule of writing an effective scientific article is to write as if the reader already knows the field in general but doesn’t know what you did. Besides content, accuracy, relevance, and science, also pay attention to the writing style and formatting.

General requirements: All files should be in Microsoft Word file format (.doc, .docx). Abbreviations should be spelled out in full for the first time. Page size should be in Letter Portrait, A4 (8.5” × 11”) and spacing between lines should be 1.5. The margin should be normal (2.54 cm on all sides). Font style should be Times New Roman and keep the font size 12 for all contents in the document except for the title (Title should be 14 Times New Roman, Bold, Capital case, Centre aligned). The corresponding author should include an asterisk.

Cover letter: The cover letter must state the material is original research, has not been previously published, and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration. If the manuscript has been previously considered for publication in another journal, please include the previous reviewer comments, to help expedite the decision by the Editorial team.

Title Page

• Complete manuscript title
• Title of the article should be short, continuous, and yet sufficiently descriptive and informative.
• The title should be brief, informative, of not more than 15 words.
• All the authors should be mentioned in order and the corresponding author should be indicated by asterisk mark (*).
• All authors' full names with, Department, Institution, University, Affiliations, City and Country name and e-mail addresses.
• Clearly indicate the provided name(s) and surname(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled.
• Affiliations of all the authors should be provided below the list of authors with appropriate citations in numbers.
• The name, address, telephone and email address of the corresponding author
• Acknowledgements (All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship the statement of conflict of interest and funding should be declared under this subheading.)
• Information pertaining to the author to be published on the title page should be uploaded separately in the system.
• Acknowledgements: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship (ICMJE: authorship and contributor ship)
• Conflicts/funding: the statement of conflict of interest and funding should be declared under this heading.

Abstract: 

Original research articles follow the Background, Aims/Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion structure for writing abstracts. An abstract should not be more than 250 words. The abstract should be brief and indicate the scope and significant results of the paper. It should only highlight the principal findings and conclusions.

Keywords: 

There should be 4-6 keywords, preferably using Medical Subject Heading (MeSH).

Introduction: 

An introduction should be brief and state precisely the scope and relevance of the study. It should be within a word limit of 400 words.

Materials & Methods: 

Describe the selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly. Sample size calculation, exclusion and inclusion criteria, and description of the source population should be clear. Methods can be divided into subsections if required (e.g., study design, participants, sampling, sample size, research instrument, etc.). Details of research methods, procedures, and apparatus/tools used for conducting the study should be mentioned clearly. Provide references to established methods, including statistical methods; provide references and brief descriptions of methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. When mentioning drugs, it should be in generic names (proprietary names can be provided in brackets). When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Do not use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. Authors should provide the details of statistical methods and software used for analyzing the data.

Results: 

Present the results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures. Tables and figures may be left at the respective location within the text. These should be numbered using Arabic numerals only. Do not repeat the results or data in the text, which are shown in the tables or figures. For qualitative studies, the authors are advised to present the quotations in the text or the boxes. When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. P should always be capitalized and italicized (Examples: P=.049; P<0.001).

Discussion: 

Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat the results or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Relate the observations to other relevant studies and include implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research.

Conclusion: 

This section should state the implications and how the study add to existing knowledge. Link the conclusions with the aims of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by your data. Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included.

Acknowledgment: 

Acknowledgment should be brief and made for specific scientific/technical assistance and financial support only and not for providing routine departmental facilities and encouragement or for help in the preparation of the manuscripts (including typing or secretarial assistance).

The source of funding for the study, if available, must be cited under this section.

Conflict of interests: 

All authors must declare their conflicts of interest. If there is a conflict, the author must declare in a separate section of the manuscript or in a cover letter.

References: 

All the references must be listed at the end of the manuscript and all the listed references must be cited in the text. All RGUHS Journals follow the official ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) Medlinestyle with minor alterations.

1. If a reference has more than 3 authors, cite the first three and then insert “et al.” If a reference has 3 authors, all authors must be listed.
2. State only the year of publication in the reference (not the date and month).
3. Journal title should be abbreviated in Medline style. For journals not in PubMed, use the full journal name or the abbreviated name provided by the journal publisher.
4. References in texts should be cited in superscript after the punctuation, without a bracket.
5. For original articles, the number of references should not exceed 30. For review articles, the number of references should not exceed 45.

Examples of references

Journal

• Author names, article title, journal name, year of publication, volume number, page range
• Journal title is abbreviated in Medline style. For journals not in PubMed, use the full journal name or the abbreviated name provided by the journal publisher
• Use a condensed page number system 
• Malick SM, Hadley J, Davis J, et al. Is evidence-based medicine teaching and learning directed at improving practice? J Royal Soc Med 2010;103(6):231-8.

Book

• Author names, book name, volume/edition number, year of publication, publisher name, city of publication.
• Bhushan V, Le T, Amin C, et al. First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. New York: McGrawHill; 2002.

Book Chapter

• Author names, chapter title, editor names, book title, volume/edition number, year of publication, city and state of publication, publisher name, and page range.
• Hadd FJ, Buckalew VM. Endogenous digitalis-like factors in hypertension. In: Laragh HJ, Brenner MB, eds. Hypertension: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management. New York, NY: Raven Press; 1995:1055-67. 

Patent

Larsen CE, Trip R, Johnson CR, inventors; Novoste Corporation, assignee. Methods for procedures related to the electrophysiology of the heart. US patent 5529 067. 1995 Jun 25.  

Electronic journal article

Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infec Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1996 Jun 5];1(1):[24 screens]. Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ ncidod/EID/eid.htm.  

World Wide Web

• Format: Author/editor (surname initials). Title [online]. Year [cited year month day].

Available from URL:.

• World Wide Web page McCook A. Pre-diabetic Condition Linked to Memory Loss [online]. 2003 [cited 2003 Feb 7]. Available from: URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_11531.html

Figures/Tables/Images:

Figures, tables, and images must be cited in the order of their appearance in the manuscript. It should be numbered in chronological order. The title of the tables/figures must be as self- explanatory as possible. Figures and tables should be in an editable format. Pictures must be in high resolution (at least 300 dpi) and in JPEG format. The patient’s identity should be protected by using an appropriate eye blinder. By default, table captions should be represented above the table and figure legends should be represented below the figure. All the tables including figures should not be more than 6. All the additional figures and tables should be included as supplementary material.

How to submit manuscript

Pre-submission Enquiries: Pre-submission inquiries should be sent to the editorial office via. e-mail.

Online Submission of Manuscript

RGUHS National Journal of Public Health accepts articles only through https://rnjph.journalgrid.com/login. For online submission, please provide your complete manuscript in the form of a single file (MS Word Format) containing all the material. Please place tables and figures in appropriate places in the text. Before submitting a manuscript, authors are encouraged to read the submission instructions carefully. You will be able to monitor the status of your manuscript online throughout the editorial process. 

Submission of revisions: Authors submitting a revised manuscript after review are asked to include the following:

• A rebuttal letter, indicating point-by-point how you have addressed the comments raised by the reviewers. If you disagree with any of the points raised, please provide adequate justification in your letter.
• Manuscript revisions will be made by using track change or by highlighting in response to the reviewers’ comments in order to aid the Editors and reviewers.
• A clean file and track change/highlighted manuscript should be submitted with a cover letter and rebuttal letter.

On Acceptance and Publication

Once the article is accepted for publication after the peer-review process, the editorial team will request all the authors to must complete and sign a copyright form (hard or scanned copy) and send it back to the editorial office for speedy processing of publication production, delay in sending the copyright form will result in delay of publication. The author must return the galley proof of their manuscript within 2-3 working days for fast processing of online publication.

Authorship and Contributorship

The Journal follows the guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) COPE's Core Practice guidance regarding authorship and contributorship.

1. Authorship Criteria:

• The journal requires that all authors meet the following criteria
• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolve.

2. Authorship Requirements

The journal requires that all authors:

• Have made significant contributions to the work and take responsibility for the content of the manuscript.
• Have read and approved the final version of the manuscript
• Agree to the submission of the manuscript to the journal
• Agree to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work

3. Contributorship Statement

The journal requires a contributorship statement to be provided for each published article. The statement should list the specific contributions of each author to the work.

Examples of contributions may include:

• Conception and design of the study
• Acquisition and analysis of data
• Drafting or revising the manuscript
• Approval of the final version of the manuscript

4. Changes to Authorship

The journal requires that any changes to authorship (adding, deleting, or rearranging authors) be approved by all authors and documented in writing

5. Conflict of Interest

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential or actual conflicts of interest related to the work being submitted.

6. Corresponding Author

The journal requires that one author be designated as the corresponding author and responsible for communicating with the journal during the submission, review, and publication process.

These policies on authorship and contributorship ensure that all authors of a published work have made significant contributions to the research and take responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work.