Tanzania Journal of Health Research (TJHR) was established 1997 as Tanzania Health Research Bulletin. It is a peer-reviewed journal open to national and international community contributions. By adopting an Open Access policy, the Journal enables the unrestricted access and reuse of all peer-reviewed published research findings. The National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania publishes it four times yearly (January, April, July, and October).
TJHR publishes original articles that cover issues related to epidemiology and public health. These include, but are not limited to, social determinants of health, the structural, biomedical, environmental, behavioural, and occupational correlates of health and diseases, and the impact of health policies, practices, and interventions on the community.
It accepts articles written in English; spelling should be based on British English. Manuscripts should be prepared by the fifth edition of the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” established by the Vancouver Group (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, ICMJE). For additional details not covered in the ICMJE Recommendations, TJHR refers to the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style (10th edition), published by the American Medical Association and Oxford University Press.
TJHR is committed to information sharing and transparency with a mission of promoting the Essential National Health Research Initiative in Tanzania and particular demand-driven health research. The journal targets readers interested in health research issues, non-specialist scientists, policy and decision-makers, and the general public. TJHR receives articles on various areas. Among these are Global health and human rights, environmental health, public health informatics, chronic disease epidemiology, social determinants of health, dental public health, digital health, occupational health, mental health, epidemiology, maternal and child health, health policies, systems and management, biostatistics and methods, health economics and outcomes research, health behaviour, health promotion and communication.
TJHR does not limit the length of papers submitted explicitly but encourages authors to be concise to reach our audience effectively. In some cases, providing more detail in appendices may be appropriate. Formatting approaches such as subheadings, lists, tables, figures, and highlighting key concepts are highly encouraged. Summaries and single-sentence tag lines or headlines— abstracted sentences containing keywords that convey the essential messages—are also standard. The authors must sign and submit a declaration of the copyright agreement. Original scientific articles should follow the conventional structure: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion.
Peer-reviewers Policy
Once manuscripts have been submitted to the TJHR, they undergo internal screening by the journal editorial team. Manuscripts meeting submission criteria and standards are thereafter assigned to three peer reviewers who are given a maximum of three weeks to undertake the review and submit reviewers’ comments.
Authors are henceforth allocated a maximum of fourteen days to respond to reviewers' comments. However, Such an allocated time may be extended upon substantive request from the authors. This turnaround time can be extended upon request from reviewers/authors. The Editor-in-Chief reviews the author's responses to ensure that the author has adequately responded to all comments raised by peer reviewers. Reviewers are then informed of the status of the manuscripts they have reviewed.
Special issues
All articles submitted are peer-reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer-review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. The Editors declare no competing interests with the submissions they have handled through the peer review.
Editorial Policies: All manuscripts submitted to the Tanzania Journal of Health Research should adhere to the TJHR format and guidelines
Appeals and complaints: Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should contact the Editor-In-Chief using the corresponding email address and not otherwise.
Conflict of Interest: All authors must complete the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. You do not need to submit the forms to the Journal. Instead, the corresponding author should keep the forms on file if a question arises about competing interests related to your submission. However, the online submission system will ask you to declare any competing interests for all authors based on the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form. If there are no competing interests, please indicate, “None declared.”
Benefits of publishing with TJHR: TJHR's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a broad community.
For further information about publishing in the Tanzania Journal of Health Research, don't hesitate to contact us at tjhr@nimr.or.tz.