printed version ISSN : 1679-4974
online version ISSN: 2237-9622

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Scope and policy
• Manuscripts modalities
• Authors’ responsibility
• Authorship criteria
• Funding sources
• Conflicts of interest
• Ethics in research involving human subjects
• Acknowledgements
• Right to reproduce manuscripts
• Preparing manuscripts for submission
• Manuscript format
• Complete manuscript text
• Tables and Figures
• Use of acronyms
• Manuscript analysis and acceptance
• Electronic page proof
• Submitting the manuscripts

Epidemiology and Health Services is a scientific open-access journal, published quarterly in electronic and print format, edited by the General Coordination for the Development of Epidemiology in Health Services, Department of Management in Health Surveillance of the Health Surveillance Secretariat of the Brazilian Ministry of Health (CGDEP/DGVES/SVS/MS). Its main mission is to disseminate epidemiological knowledge applicable to surveillance, prevention and disease control relevant to Public Health, aiming to improve services offered by the Brazilian National Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS).

In addition to the various modalities of manuscripts accepted for publishing, the journal also publishes Ministry of Health Ordinances, Regulations and Resolutions, as well as Technical Notes related to diseases surveillance, prevention and control programs, consensuses, reports and meetings or workshop recommendations on relevant issues to SUS. The re-publishing of texts originally edited by other scientific sources, and considered by the journal’s editors to be relevant for health services, is also possible.

Epidemiology and Health Services follows the guidance of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ document (ICMJE): Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals –also known as "Vancouver Style" – and the ethical principles for publishing specified by the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) code of conduct.

The journal’s Editorial Board welcomes manuscripts in the following modalities:

The journal’s Editorial Board welcomes manuscripts in the following modalities:

a) Original article – unpublished research findings in one or more of the diverse thematic areas within surveillance, prevention and control of diseases, relevant to Public Health, such as communicable diseases, chronic non-communicable diseases, health situation analysis, health promotion, occupational health surveillance, environmental health surveillance, responses to Public Health emergencies, health surveillance policies and management, and epidemiology development in health services (words limit: 3,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references);

b) Review article

b.1) Systematic review article – presentation of a summary of original study results with the purpose of answering a specific question; articles must describe in detail the process used to search for original studies and the criteria for their inclusion in the review; they may or may not present the procedure for obtaining the quantitative synthesis of the results in meta-analysis format (words limit: 4,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references); and

b.2) Narrative review article –a critical analysis of published material, an in-depth discussion about a relevant topic to public health or an update on a controversial or emerging subject; it must be prepared by an expert in the area, invited by the editors (words limit: 4,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references);

c) Research note – a brief report on final or partial results (previous notes) of original research, relevant to the journal’s scope (words limit: 1,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references);

d) Experience report – a description of an experience in epidemiology, surveillance, prevention and control of diseases, relevant to Public Health; to be submitted at the editors’ invitation (words limit: 2,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references);

e) Opinion article –a concise account of specific subjects expressing the authors’ qualified opinion (words limit: 1,500);

f) Debate –a theoretical article prepared by an expert invited by the editors, which will be criticized and commented by means of replies signed by other invited experts (words limit: 3,500 for the article, 1,500 for each reply or rejoinder, excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references); and

g) Letter –brief comments or criticisms about subjects of interest to the readers, usually related to an article published in the most recent previous edition (words limit: 400); whenever possible, a reply from the commented article’s authors will be published along with the letter (words limit: 400).

Authors are responsible for the manuscript’s veracity and uniqueness. Submitted manuscripts must be accompanied by a Statement of Liability, signed by all authors,which states that the study has not been published previously, either fully or partially, in printed or electronic format, that it has not been submitted for publication in other journals and that all authors have participated in the preparation of its intellectual contents.

Statement of Liability

The Statement of Liability must be written in accordance with the following template:

The authors of the manuscript entitled (manuscript title), submitted to Epidemiology and Health Services: the Brazilian National Health System journal, hereby state that:

a. This manuscript is original and none of its contents, whether complete, partial or substantial, has been published or submitted for publication in another journal, or any other type of publication, either in printed or electronic formats;

b. All the manuscript’s listed authors have effectively participated in the study and take public responsibility for its contents;

c. The final version of the manuscript has been approved by all authors;

d. None of the authors have conflicting interests with regard to this manuscript (or) there are conflicts of interest among the authors of this manuscript (if conflict(s) exist, they have to be mentioned in here).

(Include the place, date and the authors’ names, all of whom without exception must sign the Statement of Liability).

Authorship criteria must be based on the ICMJE/Vancouver Style requirements. Recognition of authorship must be based on substantial contribution related to the following aspects: (i) study conception and design, data analysis and interpretation; (ii) relevant drafting or critical review of the manuscript’s intellectual content; (iii) final approval of the version to be published; and responsibility of all aspects of the work, including the guarantee of its accuracy and integrity. Everyone who is identified as authors must be in accordance with the four authorship criteria, and everyone who fits into these criteria should be identified as authors. By signing the Statement of Liability, the authors acknowledge the participation of all of them in drafting the manuscript and take on public liability for its contents. A paragraph must be included at the end of the manuscript informing each author’s contribution to its preparation.

 The authors must reveal all funding or support sources, whether institutional or private, for the study and mention the number of the processes. Suppliers providing materials, equipment, inputs or drugs free of charge or with discounts must also be described as funding sources, and the city, state and country they come from must also be stated. This information must be included in the Statement of Liability, and on the title page.

Authors’ conflicts of interest are situations in which they have interest, whether apparent or not, capable of influencing the manuscript preparation process. These are diverse personal, commercial, political, academic or financial conflicts to which anyone may be subject. For this reason, if they exist, the authors must acknowledge and reveal them in the signed Statement of Liability, when submitting their manuscript for publication.

The authors are solely responsible for complying with ethical precepts related to the conducting of research and the reports there on, in keeping with the recommendations on ethics contained in the Declaration of Helsinki (available at http://www.wma.net). In the case of research involving human subjects in Brazil, authors should fully comply with the norms established in National Health Council Resolution CNS No. 196, dated October 10th, 1996 (available at http://conselho.saude.gov.br/resolucoes/reso_96.htm); as well as complementary resolutions for special situations. Ethical procedures used in research should be described in the last paragraph of the Methods’ section, indicating the approval number given by the Ethics Research Committee. In case it is a clinical trial, an identification number from one of the clinical trial registers validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and ICMJE must be informed.

When appropriate, we recommend the authors to name at the end of the manuscript those who have participated in the study, even though they have not met the authorship criteria adopted herein. Authors are responsible for obtaining written authorization from these persons before naming them in their Acknowledgements, given the possibility of readers inferring that these people are endorsing the data in the study and its conclusions. Acknowledgements to institutions for their financial or logistical support to the study may also be mentioned. Impersonal acknowledgments, such as "... to all those who have contributed in some way to the project …”, should be avoided.

The content published by Epidemiology and Health Services journal is under a Creative Commons BY-NC license.The total or partial reproduction, translation to other languages or electronic linking thereof by other journals is only allowed upon attending the requirements in this license, which include the possibility of sharing and adapting the material as long as the appropriate credit is given and it is not for commercial purposes.

a) The authors keep the copyrights and grant this journal the right of first-hand publishing. The work will also be licensed by Creative Commons Attribution,which allows sharing the work, as long as the authorship and initial publication of the articles are acknowledged.

b) The authors can sign separate additional contracts for non-exclusive distribution of the version published in this journal (e.g.: publishing in an institutional repository, or as a book chapter), as long as the authorship and initial publication of the articles are acknowledged.

c) Authors are authorized and even encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (e.g.: in institutional repositories or in their personal site), any time before or during the editorial process, since it can bring positive changes, and also raise the impact and citation of the published work.

When preparing the manuscripts, authors must follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals – ICMJE. The original version is available at http://www.icmje.org.

The translated version into Portuguese was published at RESS v. 23, No. 3, 2015 and is available at http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2237-96222015000300577&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=pt.

The manuscript structure should be in accordance to the guidelines from scientific writing guides. The full list can be found at the website from EQUATOR network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of health Research), available at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/.

The main guides are listed below:

Observational studies (cohort, case-control and cross): STROBE statement (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology), available at: www.strobe-statement.org/

Clinical trials: CONSORT statement (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials), available at: http://www.consort-statement.org/

Manuscripts are to be written in Portuguese. They must be double-spaced using Times New Roman font, size 12, in Rich Text Format (RTF) or Word Document (DOC), using standard A4 size pages with 3 cm margins. Footnotes will not be accepted.

Title page

a) Manuscript modality;

b) Manuscript title, in Portuguese, English and Spanish;

c) Abbreviated title, to be used as header reference on each page;

d) Full names of the authors and the institutions to which they belong (only one institution per author, including the unit or department), city, state and country;

e) All authors’ e-mail addresses;

f) Corresponding Author’s full address and e-mail address, and telephone numbers;

g) Information about monographs, dissertations or theses originating the manuscript, naming the author and the defense year, and all institutions involved in the study, if applicable; and

Resumo (Abstract in Portuguese)

A single paragraph containing up to 150 words, covering the following sections: Objetivo (Objective); Métodos (Methods); Resultados (Results); and Conclusão (Conclusion), for the modalities original article, literature review, and research note. For the modality experience report, the abstract is to be written in one paragraph, containing 150 words, not necessarily in structured format (objective, methods, results and conclusion).

Palavras-chave (Keywords in Portuguese)

Three to five keywords must be selected from the list of Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS), a vocabulary structured by the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information, also known by its original name as Biblioteca Regional de Medicina (BIREME), (Regional Library of Medicine). DeCS have been created to standardize a unique language for scientific document indexing and retrieval (available at http://decs.bvs.br).

Abstract

English version of the abstract in Portuguese, having the following sections: Objective; Methods; Results; and Conclusion.

Keywords

English version of the same descriptors selected from DeCS.

Resumen (Abstract in Spanish)

Spanish version of the abstract, having the following sections: Objetivos; Métodos; Resultados; and Conclusión.

Palabras clave (Keywords in Spanish)

Spanish version of the same descriptors selected from DeCS.

Original article and research note manuscripts should comprise the following sections in this order: Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; and References. Tables and figures will be referred to in the Results section and included at the end of the article, when possible, or in a separate file (in an editable format).

Introduction – Presentation of the problem that generated the research question, the given reason and study aim, in this order.

Methods – Description of the study design, the studied population, the methods used, including, when applicable, the calculation of the sample size, sampling methods, data collection procedure, studied variables and their categories, data processing and analysis procedures; when studies involve humans or animals, the relevant Ethical Considerations must be addressed (see Ethics in research involving human subjects section).

Results – Presentation of results achieved. It may refer to tables and figures as long as they are self-explanatory (see item on Tables and Figures below).

Discussion – Comments on results achieved, their implications and limitations; comparison between the study and other publications and scientific literature relevant to the subject.The section should start with a paragraph containing a summary of the main findings of the study, and close with the conclusions andthe results’ implications to health services and policies.

Acknowledgements – To be included after the Discussion section. They must be limited to the necessary minimum.

Authors’ contributions – A paragraph describing each author’s specific contribution.

Journal articles

1. Damacena GN, Szwarcwald CL, Malta DC, Souza Júnior PRB, Vieira MLFP, Pereira CA, et al. O processo de desenvolvimento da Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde no Brasil, 2013. Epidemiol Serv Saude. 2015 abr-jun;24(2):197-206.

- Volume with supplement

2. Schmidt MI, Duncan BB, Hoffmann JF, Moura L, Malta DC, Carvalho RM. Prevalence of diabetes and hypertension based on self-reported morbidity survey, Brazil, 2006. RevSaude Publica. 2009 Nov;43 Suppl 2:74-82.

- Issue with supplement

3. Malta DC, Leal MC, Costa MFL, Morais Neto OL. Inquéritos nacionais de saúde: experiência acumulada e proposta para o inquérito de saúde brasileiro. Rev Bras Epidemiol. 2008 mai 11(2Supl 1):159-67.

- Un published material 4. Freitas LRS, Garcia LP. Evolução da prevalência do diabetes e diabetes associado à hipertensão arterial no Brasil: análise das pesquisas nacionais por amostra de domicílios, 1998, 2003 e 2008. Epidemiol Serv Saude. No prelo 2012.

Books

5. Pereira MG. Artigos científicos: como redigir, publicar e avaliar. Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara Koogan; 2011.

- Institutional authorship

6. Ministério da Saúde (BR). Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Departamento de Vigilância Epidemiológica. Guia de vigilância epidemiológica. 7. ed. Brasília: Ministério da Saúde; 2009.

7. Secretaria de Estado de Planejamento e Coordenação Geral (Mato Grosso). Informativo populacional e econômico de Mato Grosso: 2008. Cuiabá: Secretaria de Estado de Planejamento e Coordenação Geral; 2008.

Book chapters

When the chapter’s author is not the book’s author

When the book’s author is the chapter’s author

9. Löwy I. Vírus, mosquitos e modernidade: a febre amarela no Brasil entre ciência e política. Rio de Janeiro: Fiocruz; 2006. Capítulo 5, Estilos de controle: mosquitos, vírus e humanos; p. 249-315.

Conference annals

- Published in books

10. Samad SA, Silva EMK. Perdas de vacinas: razões e prevalência em quatro unidades federadas do Brasil. In: Anais da 11ª Expoepi: Mostra Nacional de Experiências Bem-Sucedidas em Epidemiologia, Prevenção e Controle de Doenças; 2011 31 out - 3 nov; Brasília, Brasil. Brasília: Ministério da Saúde, 2011. p. 142.

- Published in journals

11. Oliveira DMC, Montoni V. Situação epidemiológica da leishmaniose visceral no Estado de Alagoas – 2002. In: 19ª Reunião Anual de Pesquisa Aplicada em Doença de Chagas; 7ª Reunião Anual de Pesquisa Aplicada em Leishmanioses. 2003 out 24-26; Uberaba. Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical; 2003. p. 21-2. (Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical, vol. 36, supl. 2).

Ordinances and Laws

12. Brasil. Ministério da Saúde. Portaria nº 116, de 11 de fevereiro de 2009. Regulamenta a coleta de dados, fluxo e periodicidade de envio das informações sobre óbitos e nascidos vivos para os Sistemas de Informações em Saúde sob gestão da Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Diário Oficial da República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília (DF), 2009 fev 12; Seção 1:37.

13. Brasil. Casa Civil. Lei nº 9.431, de 6 de janeiro de 1997. Decreta a obrigatoriedade do Programa de Controle de Infecção Hospitalar em todos os hospitais brasileiros. Diário Oficial da República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília (DF), 1997 jan7; Seção 1:165.

Electronic references

14. Rede Interagencial de Informação para a Saúde. Indicadores básicos para a saúde no Brasil: conceitos e aplicações [Internet]. Brasília: Organização Pan-Americana da Saúde; 2008 [citado 2012 fev5]. 349 p. Disponível em: http://tabnet.datasus.gov.br/tabdata/livroidb/2ed/indicadores.pdf

15. Malta DC, Morais Neto OL, Silva Junior JB. Apresentação do plano de ações estratégicas para o enfrentamento das doenças crônicas não transmissíveis no Brasil, 2011 a 2022. EpidemiolServSaude [Internet]. 2011 dez [citado 2012 fev6]; 20(4):93-107. Disponível em: http://scielo.iec.pa.gov.br/pdf/ess/v20n4/v20n4a02.pdf

Theses and dissertations

16. Waldman EA. Vigilância epidemiológica como prática de saúde pública [tese]. São Paulo (SP): Universidade de São Paulo; 1991.

17. Daufenbach LZ. Morbidade hospitalar por causas relacionadas à influenza em idosos no Brasil, 1992 a 2006: situação atual, tendências e impacto da vacinação [dissertação]. Salvador (BA): Universidade Federal da Bahia; 2008.

Original and review articles should contain up to 5 tables and/or figures, in total. For research notes and experience reports, the limit is 3 tables and/or figures.

Figures and tables should be put at the end of the manuscript, when possible, or in separate files sorted as cited in the text, always in editable format. Tables and figures titles should be concise and avoid the use of abbreviations or acronyms. If these must be used in titles, they should be explained with subtitles at the bottom of each table or figure. Tables, charts (classified and titled in the same way as figures), organization charts and flow charts should be presented as electronic documents in standard Microsoft Word format; graphs, maps, photographs and other images should be presented in EPS, JPG, BMP or TIF formats in CMYK mode, in black or grey shades only.

The use of uncommon acronyms should be avoided. Their use should be employed only when they are recognized by the literature; valuing the manuscript clarity.

Acronyms with up to three letters should be written in upper case letters (e.g. DOU, USP, OIT). When unknown acronyms are used for the first time the words they represent must be written in full, followed by the acronym in brackets. Acronyms and abbreviations comprised only of consonants should be written in upper case letters. Acronyms with four letters or more should be written in capital letters, if each one of them is pronounced separately (e.g. BNDES, INSS, IBGE). In the case of acronyms with four letters or more that form a word comprised of vowels and consonants, only the first letter should be capitalized (e.g. Funasa, Datasus, Sinan). Acronyms including upper and lower case letters should be written as originally created (e.g. CNPq, UnB). Foreign acronyms (not Brazilian ones) are recommended to be translated into Portuguese if such translation is universally accepted. If there is no corresponding acronym in Portuguese, the original acronym is to be used even if the full name in Portuguese does not correspond to the acronym (e.g. Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura - UNESCO). Some foreign acronyms have been adopted in popular communication as a name, such as the word AIDS in English. The Ministry of Health National AIDS Commission (CNAIDS) has decided to recommend that all Ministry documents and publications may refer to the acronym by its original English name, but in lower case letters: aids (BRASIL. Fundação Nacional de Saúde. Manual de editoração e produção visual da Fundação Nacional de Saúde. Brasília: Funasa, 2004. 272p.).

Only manuscripts having the indicated format and containing subjects relevant to the journal’s scope will be accepted. In the case of studies involving human subjects, a preliminary analysis will be made to verify whether they have been approved by a Research Ethics Committee, as well as their potential for being published and being of interest to the journal’s readers. Manuscripts not meeting these requirements will not be accepted.

Manuscripts considered relevant to be published will go through the editorial process, composed by the following stages:

1) Technical review – it is conducted by the Editorial Board. It consists basically on reviewing aspects of form and scientific writing, so the manuscript fits into all the aspects from the authors’ instructions and is able to start the external peer review process.

2) External peer review – it is conducted by at least two reviewers who do not belong to the Editorial Board (ad hoc reviewers), that present solid knowledge on the manuscript topic and have accepted to perform the review. On this stage, the ad hoc reviewers are supposed to assess the scientific merit and the manuscript format, making constructive critics to its improvement. RESS adopts the system of double-blind review, in which the ad hoc reviewers do not know who the authors are and are not named in the review sent to the authors. The ad hoc reviewers must follow the ethics guidelines recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf

For this stage, we recommend you to use the Guidelines for reviewing manuscripts, available at http://ress.iec.gov.br/ress/home/carregarPagina?p=guiaRevisao&lang=pt.

3) Editorial Board review – after submitting the redraft version of the manuscript, according to the double-blind review, the editorial board will assess the manuscript again, checking the acceptance or the reasons for not accepting the ad hoc reviewers’ suggestion, as well as, when relevant, will highlight aspects that may be improved on the presentation of the study report, issues related to the pattern for publishing at RESS. On this stage, one more time, it is verified if the manuscript fits into all the journal’s instructions.

4) Editorial Committee final review – after the manuscript is pre-approved for publishing by the editorial board, one of the members of the Editorial Committee, with knowledge on the topic, will assess it. On this stage, the manuscript can be considered as approved and ready for publishing, approved with adjustment to be done or not approved for publishing.

It is important to highlight that, at all the stages, more than one review round may be necessary.

In all the editorial process steps, the considerations will be sent to the authors with a defined timetable to be returned. The authors are recommended to pay attention to communications that will be sent to the e-mail address informed on the submission, as well as to observe the deadlines to answer. Not observing the deadline, mainly when there is no justification within the stipulated date, may be a reason to stop the manuscript editorial process.

After the manuscript acceptance, an electronic page proof in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. Once the proof has been reviewed, the author must provide the journal’s Executive Secretary with authorization for publishing the manuscript within the deadline specified by the Editorial Board.

Correspondence

Manuscripts are to be submitted to Sistema SciELO de Publicação. In case the authors do not receive any confirmation from RESS Secretariat, they should contact the journal through the alternative electronic address: ress.svs@gmail.com.

The Statement of Liability, signed by all authors, must be attached in PDF format, scanned, together with the manuscript file.

Checklist prior to manuscript submission

1. Format: A4 size paper with 3 cm margins, Times New Roman font, size 12, double-spaced.

2. Title page:

a. Manuscript modality;

b. Manuscript title in Portuguese, English and Spanish;

c. Abbreviated title in Portuguese;

d. All the authors’ names, institutional affiliation and e-mail addresses (only one institution per author);

e. Corresponding author’s full address and telephone number;

f. Funding agencies’ names and process numbers, when applicable; and

g. If the manuscript has been based on an academic monograph, dissertation or thesis, name the institution and the year it was defended.

3. Abstract in English, Resumo in Portuguese and Resumen in Spanish for all manuscript types, except letters, in particular obeying the described format structure for original articles and notes - objective, methods, results and conclusion.

4. keywords/Palavras-chave/Palabrasllave, selected from the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS), available at the website (http://decs.bvs.br).

5. Inform the approval number given by the Research Ethics Committee and the clinical trial registration number, when available.

6. A paragraph mentioning theauthors’ contributions.

7. Tables and figures. No more than five for original and review articles. No more than three for research notes and experience reports.

8. References standardized as per ICMJE (Vancouver Style), numbered in the same order as they appear in the text; ensure that all are cited in the text and that their order of citation corresponds to the order shown in the References list at the end of the manuscript.

9. Consent of persons mentioned in the acknowledgments.

10. Statement of Liability, signed by all authors.