East African Health Research Journal
Journal / East African Health Research Journal / Submissions

 

Author guidelines are available at https://eahrj.eahealth.org/index.php/eah/instructions

EAHRJ accepts articles written in English; spelling should be based on British English. The Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (previously referred to as the "Uniform Requirements"), published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), provides useful guidelines to aid authors in preparing manuscripts for publication. For additional details not covered in the ICMJE Recommendations, EAHRJ refers to the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style (10th edition), published by the American Medical Association and Oxford University Press.

We do not set explicit limits on the length of papers submitted, but we encourage authors to be concise in order 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.

References

EAHRJ follows the AMA references style. Please try to adhere to this style as much as possible. You can consider using reference management software, such as Mendeley (free), EndNote, or RefWorks, which include a built-in style for AMA, making it easier for authors to format citations and the reference list including making automated changes during revision stages.

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript. Note that if you are using the footnote/endnote feature in Microsoft Word, it will create a new reference number for each citation that you make. But if you need to cite the same reference multiple times in your paper, you will need to use the same citation number rather than creating a new footnote/endnote each time which will generate a new citation number. You can manually insert the superscripted number in these instances. Include a list of all references cited at the end of the article, in the order in which they were mentioned in the text.

Submission

Please submit your paper through our online submission system (see Submit Manuscript above). After creating an account, the online system will ask you to enter information about your paper, such as the title, abstract, and author names. Then you will be instructed to upload your title page, paper, and any accompanying figures, tables, photos, and supplementary materials.

Please upload the main paper with references as either a Microsoft Word document (DOC, DOCX) or in rich text format (RTF). Please double space your paper and number the pages (but do not include line numbers). Because EAHRJ operates a double-blind peer review system, we ask that you do not include any author-identifying information in the main paper (including acknowledgements) or in the filenames. Instead, upload a separate title page with the title of your paper and author names and affiliations.

Each illustration, figure, and photo should be numbered and uploaded separately, preferably in the format in which it was originally created (such as Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint or in a graphics software), not embedded or copied and pasted into the paper. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that these images are at a high enough resolution to produce good quality reproduction in the published article. Resolution of photos should be approximately 300 dpi (dots per inch), and line or halftone figures and illustrations should be approximately 600 dpi. If you submit photographs with identifiable people or if you are reproducing illustrations/figures from another source and do not own the copyright to those illustrations, you must also submit a form to grant permission to EAHRJ to use those images before final publication. (We will send you this form during the copyediting phase if your article is accepted for publication.)

Tables should also be numbered and submitted separately, not embedded in the paper. You may upload each table individually or include all tables in one file.

Text boxes can be included in the main paper file, with an indication of the start and end of the box, or as a separate file.

Footnotes should generally be avoided. Such statements can usually be incorporated into the body of the paper as a parenthetical statement.

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 in the event that a question arises about competing interests related to your submission. The online submission system will ask you, however, 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.”

In general, papers should be prepared in accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Open Access Policy

EAHRJ applies the Creative Commons Attribution License to all articles that we publish. Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their articles or they can transfer copyright to their institution, but authors allow anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and/or adapt articles without permission, so long as the original authors and source are cited.

Peer-reviewers Policy

East African Health Research Journal (EAHRJ) operates a double-blind peer review system, in which the identities of both reviewers and authors are concealed from each other throughout the review process.

EAHRJ contains peer-reviewed articles, original articles, reviews, book reviews, short communications, surveys, commentaries, opinions on policy or practice, essays, reports, etc., from East Africa. It covers the wide range of subjects and issues in the health sector ranging from medicine, geo-medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacology, toxicology, pharmaceutical science, veterinary science, food science, health-related agriculture science, health professionals, etc., that provide evidence for improving health policy and practice.

When manuscripts are submitted for publication consideration to the EAHRJ, they are first screened by members of the scientific editorial team. If manuscripts meet the minimum standard of the EAHRJ, they are then assigned four peer-reviewers. Submitted manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review. The EAHRJ editorial board has established a pool of twenty (20) permanent peer-reviewers from five East African Community Partner States. This permanent pool of reviewers meets once a year to discuss challenges and suggest recommendations to improve the review process. In addition to the pool of permanent peer-reviewers, the EAHRJ also engages scholars from Health Research Institutions and teaching hospitals from EAC Partner States.

Original Articles, Reviews/Meta-Analyses, Field Action Reports, Technical Notes, and Methodological papers are considered appropriate for publication when have been reviewed by at least 2 peer-reviewers. Short communications, commentaries, opinions on policy or practice, essays, reports are considered appropriate for publication when they have been reviewed by at least one peer-reviewer.

The EAHRJ gives reviewers twenty-one (21) working days to review a manuscript and submit their comments. The authors are subsequently given fourteen (14) working days to respond to reviewers' comments. This turnaround time can be extended upon request from reviewers/authors. If the decision is for revision, authors are requested to respond to comments raised by reviewers. 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.

If the decision is for revision, the author is requested to address each comment by the reviewers and submit a letter outlining their responses accompanying their revised manuscript. The assigned editor will re-evaluate the revisions and will either make a decision or submit the manuscript for the second round of review, usually to the original set of reviewers. Reviewers will be informed of the outcome of manuscripts which they have reviewed.

The role of peer reviewers is to recommend acceptance – either with or without revision or resubmission–or rejection of papers.

In the case of discordant reviews, the Editor-in-Chief may seek review by an additional experts/reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection taking into account reviewers’ recommendations.

Publication of articles by the East African Health Research Journal is primarily dependent on their clarity, and potential impact, as judged by peer reviewers and the editorial team. The main criteria on which peer reviewers assess the manuscripts include:

• Importance and relevance of the topic
• The originality of the work that adds value to the existing body of knowledge
• Substance
• Sound study (or program) design and methodology (or implementation)
• Sound uses of evidence
• Compelling conclusions that are actionable and based on the evidence presented
• Presentation and clarity of writing

Manuscripts will be sent to a statistician for additional review if necessary based on recommendations from the reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief.

Author Fees

EAHRJ does not charge any fees to authors to submit or publish articles in our journal. (Post-publication changes, which are very rare, may be subject to a nominal fee.)

CONTACT

For further information, please contact the editors at eahrj.editor@eahealth.org