Submissions

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

1. Manuscript

THE AUTHORS SHOULD SUBMIT A SINGLE FILE CONTAINING TITLE PAGE, MANUSCRIPT, TABLES AND FIGURES. SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS SHOULD BE SUBMITTED AS SEPARATE FILES. 

TITLE PAGE must contain:

- The title: should be concise, omitting terms that are implicit and, where possible, be a statement of the main result or conclusion presented in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be avoided within the title

- Author(s) names

- Departments or Institutions/ Affiliation/ email

- Name and address, telephone and email of the Corresponding Author

- Abstract. The abstract should render the general significance and conceptual advance of the   work clearly accessible to a broad readership. The abstract should be structured (INTRODUCTION, METHODS, RESULTS, CONCLUSION).  In the abstract, minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references.

- Keywords. List from three to ten keywords

There is no specific requirement for fonts. Avoid footnotes. Only the following formats are accepted for publication: DOC, ODT, RTF, LaTeX. 

 

MANUSCRIPT

Suggested lengths of manuscripts are the  following:

- original articles 5000 characters

- reviews 7000 characters

- systematic reviews 7000 characters

- commentaries 3000 characters

- case reports 2000 characters

- letters to the editor 1000 characters.

For research articles involving animal subjects, authors must adhere to the ARRIVE (Animals in Research: Reporting in Vivo Experiments) guidelines for reporting animal research (Kilkenny et al. 2010; Tilson and Schroeder 2013). For observational research studies, EHP strongly recommends that authors consult an appropriate version of the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) guidelines. Before conducting a review, authors should consult appropriate guidelines, such as PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) and the EQUATOR network, for guidance on planning, executing, and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and scoping reviews. Submitted protocols for systematic reviews must be registered in PROSPERO or another appropriate protocol database and comply with reporting requirements set out in the PRISMA-P Statement (Moher et al. 2015)

 

- Structure

• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Authorship
• Acknowledgments
• Funding
• Conflict of Interest
• Ethics approval and consent to participate
• Authors' contributions
• References

 

Authorship

Authorship provides credit for a researcher’s contributions to a study and carries accountability. Authors are expected to fulfil the criteria below (adapted from McNutt et al.,Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 2018, 201715374; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715374115; licensed under CC BY 4.0):

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception OR design of the work; OR the acquisition, analysis, OR interpretation of data; OR the creation of new software used in the work; OR have drafted the work or substantively revised it

AND to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author's contribution to the study);

AND to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.

 

Corresponding authors

Corresponding authors are responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors, and that all authors receive the submission and all substantive correspondence with editors, as well as the full reviews, verifying that all data, figures, materials (including reagents), and code, even those developed or provided by other authors, comply with the transparency and reproducibility standards of both the field and journal.

This responsibility includes but is not limited to: (i) ensuring that original data/original figures/materials/code upon which the submission is based are preserved following best practices in the field so that they are retrievable for reanalysis; (ii) confirming that data/figures/materials/code presentation accurately reflects the original; and (iii) foreseeing and minimizing obstacles to the sharing of data/materials/code described in the work. The corresponding author should be responsible for managing these requirements across the author group and ensuring that the entire author group is fully aware of and in compliance with best practices in the discipline of publication.

To discourage ghost authorship, corresponding authors must reveal as appropriate whether the manuscript benefited from the use of editorial services that, if unacknowledged, might constitute an undisclosed conflict of interest. Examples include use of an editor from an organization that may have a vested interest in slanting the results or reliance on a technical writer at a level that would warrant authorship credit. These situations might variously be addressed by including a statement in the acknowledgments, by describing the effort in the methods section, or by adding an author.

The involvement of scientific (medical) writers or anyone else who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged, along with their source of funding, as described in the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) guidelines. The role of medical writers should be acknowledged explicitly in the ‘Acknowledgements’ or ‘Authors’ contributions’ section as appropriate.

Corresponding authors should indicate whether any authors on earlier versions have been removed or new authors added and why. It is incumbent on the corresponding author to ensure that all authors (or group/laboratory leaders in large collaborations) have certified the author list and contribution description: that all authors who deserve to be credited on the manuscript are indeed identified, that no authors are listed who do not deserve authorship credit, and that author contributions, where they are provided, are expressed accurately.

Any potential authorship disputes brought to the editors’ attention will be handled in line with COPE guidelines.

 

Acknowledgments

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.

 

Competing interests

EJOEH requires authors to declare all competing interests in relation to their work according to the ICMJE disclosure form. All submitted manuscripts must include a ‘competing interests’ section at the end of the manuscript listing all competing interests (financial and non-financial). Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no competing interests”. The Editor may ask for further information relating to competing interests.

Editors and reviewers are also required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

 

2. References

References must be listed in alphabetical order. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. Use of DOI is highly encouraged.

List up to the first six authors, followed by et al. If there are more than six authors, list the first six authors, followed by et al.

 

EXAMPLES

Article

Brito IP, Tropaldi L, Carbonari CA, Velini ED. Hormetic effects of glyphosate on plants. Pest Management Science. 2018 May;74(5):1064-1070. doi:10.1002/ps.4523.

Chapter in a book:

R.G. Belz R.G. and Duke S.O. “Herbicide-mediated hormesis” in

S.O. Duke, P. Kudsk, K. Solomon (Eds.), Pesticide Dose: Effects on the Environment and Target and Non-Target Organisms, American Chemical Society, Washington; 2017. p. 135-148.

Book:

IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk to Humans. Some Organophosphate Insecticides and Herbicides. Lyon (FR): International Agency for Research on Cancer; 2017. (IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, No. 112.) Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK436774/

 

Patent

Marshall, S. P. (2000). Method and apparatus for eye tracking and monitoring pupil dilation to evaluate cognitive activity. U.S. Patent No 6,090,051. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Data

Aevermann, B., Pickett, B., Kumar, S. et al. A comprehensive collection of systems biology data characterizing the host response to viral infection. Sci Data 1, 140033 (2014). doi : 10.1038/sdata.2014.33

Website

CDC. 2012. Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice. https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/ [accessed 14 September 2019]

Preprint

Soderberg, Courtney K., Timothy M. Errington, and Brian A. Nosek. 2020. “Credibility of Preprints: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Researchers.” MetaArXiv. March 12. doi:10.31222/osf.io/kabux (Accessed March 22, 2020)

  

3. Figures

When preparing figures, please follow the formatting instructions below.

• Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text, and uploaded in this order. Multi-panel figures (those with parts a, b, c, d etc.) should be submitted as a single composite file that contains all parts of the figure.
• Figures should be uploaded in the correct orientation.
• Figure titles (max 15 words) and legends (max 300 words) should be provided in the main manuscript, not in the graphic file.
• Figure keys should be incorporated into the graphic, not into the legend of the figure.
• Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration. Cropping figures improves accuracy when placing the figure in combination with other elements when the accepted manuscript is prepared for publication on our site. For more information on individual figure file formats, see our detailed instructions.
• Individual figure files should not exceed 10 MB. If a suitable format is chosen, this file size is adequate for extremely high quality figures.
• Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures (or tables) that have previously been published elsewhere. In order for all figures to be open access, authors must have permission from the rights holder if they wish to include images that have been published elsewhere in non open access journals. Permission should be indicated in the figure legend, and the original source included in the reference list.
• Please include a minimum of 4 figures to a maximum of 6 figures.

 

Figure file types

We accept the following file formats for figures:

• EPS (suitable for diagrams and/or images)
• PDF (suitable for diagrams and/or images)
• Microsoft Word (suitable for diagrams and/or images, figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (suitable for diagrams and/or images, figures must be a single page)
• TIFF (suitable for images)
• JPEG (suitable for photographic images, less suitable for graphical images)
• PNG (suitable for images)
• BMP (suitable for images)
• CDX (ChemDraw - suitable for molecular structures)

Figure size and resolution

Figures are resized during publication of the final full text and PDF versions to conform to the BioMed Central standard dimensions, which are detailed below.

Figures on the web:

• width of 600 pixels (standard), 1200 pixels (high resolution).

Figures in the final PDF version:

• width of 85 mm for half page width figure
• width of 170 mm for full page width figure
• maximum height of 225 mm for figure and legend
• image resolution of approximately 300 dpi (dots per inch) at the final size

Figures should be designed such that all information, including text, is legible at these dimensions. All lines should be wider than 0.25 pt when constrained to standard figure widths. All fonts must be embedded.

Figure file compression

• Vector figures should if possible be submitted as PDF files, which are usually more compact than EPS files.
• TIFF files should be saved with LZW compression, which is lossless (decreases file size without decreasing quality) in order to minimize upload time.
• JPEG files should be saved at maximum quality.
• Conversion of images between file types (especially lossy formats such as JPEG) should be kept to a minimum to avoid degradation of quality.

 

4. Tables

When preparing tables, please follow the formatting instructions below.

• Tables should be numbered and cited in the text in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, Table 2 etc.).
• Tables less than one A4 or Letter page in length can be placed in the appropriate location within the manuscript.
• Tables larger than one A4 or Letter page in length can be placed at the end of the document text file. Please cite and indicate where the table should appear at the relevant location in the text file so that the table can be added in the correct place during production.
• Larger datasets, or tables too wide for A4 or Letter landscape page can be uploaded as additional files. Please see [below] for more information.
• Tabular data provided as additional files can be uploaded as an Excel spreadsheet (.xls ) or comma separated values (.csv). Please use the standard file extensions.
• Table titles (max 15 words) should be included above the table, and legends (max 300 words) should be included underneath the table.
• Tables should not be embedded as figures or spreadsheet files, but should be formatted using ‘Table object’ function in your word processing program.
• Color and shading may not be used. Parts of the table can be highlighted using superscript, numbering, lettering, symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend.
• Commas should not be used to indicate numerical values.

 

5. Supplementary Materials

As the length and quantity of data is not restricted for many article types, authors can provide datasets, tables, movies, or other information as supplementary materials.

All Supplementary Materials will be published along with the accepted article, but they will not be subject to peer review. Do not include files such as patient consent forms, certificates of language editing, or revised versions of the main manuscript document with tracked changes. Such files, if requested, should be sent by email to the journal’s editorial email address, quoting the manuscript reference number. Please do not send completed patient consent forms unless requested.

Results that would otherwise be indicated as "data not shown" should be included as additional files. Since many web links and URLs rapidly become broken. Please do not link to data on a personal/departmental website. Do not include any individual participant details. The maximum file size for additional files is 20 MB each, and files will be virus-scanned on submission. Each additional file should be cited in sequence within the main body of text.

If additional material is provided, please list the following information in a separate section of the manuscript text:

• File name (e.g. Additional file 1)
• File format including the correct file extension for example .pdf, .xls, .txt, .pptx (including name and a URL of an appropriate viewer if format is unusual)
• Title of data
• Description of data