Submissions

Author Guidelines

About the Journal

National Journal of Community Medicine is a peer-reviewed journal. It has a wide circulation amongst the health professionals, teaching faculties and postgraduates of the specialty of Community Medicine. Quality articles are invited from the contributors for “Original Articles, Review Articles, Short Communications, and Letter to the Editor”. Potential contributors are requested to read the “Uniform Guidelines for Submission of Biomedical Articles”, before submitting an article.

The aim of the journal is to publish high quality peer reviewed research in the fields of public health and community health, especially on issues of national and regional importance for developing countries like India and abroad.

Scope of the Journal

The journal typically publishes original research articles and review articles from the areas of public health, preventive medicine, general epidemiology, infectious and non-infectious disease epidemiology, epidemiological diagnosis, maternal health, child health, adolescent health, public health administration, health care service delivery, etc. Research findings relevant to India and the subcontinent are emphasized more. However, it is not limited to that. Invited reviews and comments, invited papers on recent advances, editorial correspondence, and book reviews are also published in the journal.

The ‘Instruction for Authors’ includes following subhead:

A) Submission of Article

B) File Format

C) Article Format – Basic Requirements

D) Format for Submission

1) Covering Letter

2) Suggested length of articles:

3) Components of Articles:

4) Guideline for specific section

5) References:

E) Review Process

F) Printing and Manuscript handling charges

G) Copyright and License Notice

Details of each subhead are as follows:

A) Submission of articles

Articles must be sent through online submission system only. Link for the same in available on the home page of this website (Scroll down and see the left panel) or directly click on the following link:

Login | National Journal of Community Medicine (njcmindia.com).

No need to send manuscript in hard copy. Articles sent on paper are not accepted.

B) File Format:

NJCM accepts materials in the following electronic formats:

1. Text: Microsoft Word
2. Illustrations*: JPG format

Materials sent in any other format shall not be accepted.

*Illustrations (figures/photos/graphs) in  .JPG format should be inserted into the body of the text  The photographs used in case illustrations should be the original, unedited images.

Correspondence: All submissions should be accompanied by the e-mail ID of the corresponding author. All correspondence regarding the papers, including proofs, will be sent to the corresponding author unless specifically indicated otherwise at the time of submission. All correspondence from the Editorial Board shall be through e-mail only.

C) Article Format – Basic Requirements

Editorials, Review Articles and articles of Current Interest are solicited by the Editorial Board and therefore should be sent only on our request. Guidelines for other articles are given below:

Basic Requirements:

Articles submitted to NJCM shall conform to the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med. 1997;336:309-15)

C.1) Originality: All articles submitted for publication in NJCM should be original material. The submission should have been made exclusively to NJCM and should not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. The first author should certify to this effect. Any author/s found to falsify or mislead the editors will be disqualified from future submissions to NJCM.

C.2) Authorship: Each quoted author should have contributed substantially to the represented work in terms of conceptual design or analysis, writing of the article and final approval of the article in order to take public responsibility for the content. First author must guarantee this to be so. Download and submit the Conflict of Interest Statement form.

Click here to download Conflict of Interest Statement form

C.3) Disclosure of commercial interests: Sources of support for the research or article must be acknowledged in the paper and any financial involvement that might indicate a conflict of interest should be disclosed at the time of submission.

C.4) Patient Anonymity and Consent: Since NJCM is largely available for public access, ethical and legal considerations mandate that patients' anonymity be preserved. Research papers must indicate informed consent for procedures and the involvement of an ethical committee, proof of which may be required in the review process of the paper.

D) Format for Submission:

D.1) The First Page

The first page should comprise of the Title; Full name/s [Title, Given name, Family name, Lineage (ancestral family name)], qualifications and designation of the author/s; Address for correspondence; e-mail of corresponding author; Key words and Abstract.

The article, in the format given below, should follow in the subsequent pages.

D.2) Minimum suggested length of articles (Should not be used to limit any submission):

• Original Article/Review Article - 5000 words
• Short Research Article - 2000 words
• Case Reports - 1500 words
• Short Communications - 1200 words
• Comments/Letters to the Editor - 800 words

D.3) Components of Articles:

Articles submitted to NJCM shall conform to the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med. 1997;336:309-15).

For Original Article, Review Articles: Title, Authors and affiliations, Summary/Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Statistics, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, References

For Case Reports, Short Communications: Title, Authors and affiliations, Summary/Abstract, Introduction, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, References

For Comments/Letters to the Editor: Title, Authors and affiliations, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion, References

D.4) Guideline for specific section

D.4.a) Title: Short, meaningful and interesting, preferably not more than 18 words (or 90 characters) in length.

D.4.b) Authors and affiliations: Full name, qualifications, designation and institutional affiliation of all authors, complete postal address, mobile number and e-mail ID of the first author for correspondence.

D.4.c) Summary/Abstract: Not more than 200 words, stating 1) background/introduction, 2) purpose(s)/ objectives of the study or investigation, 3) basic procedures and methodology, 4) important findings and 5) principal conclusions. Mention 4-6 keys words after abstract. Emphasis should be on new and important aspects of the study or observations. No references allowed. Avoid phrases, write full sentences.

D.4.d) Introduction: Brief review of the subject or background; purpose of the article and /or rationale for the study; pertinent references only. Try to limit it to 350 to 400 words.

D.4.e) Methods: Selection criteria, details of the methods/procedures so that others can reproduce the same. For established methods, give references; for not so well known methods, give brief description and references; for new or substantially modified methods, give details, reasons for use and for modification(s) and limitations. Drug(s) and chemical(s) should be precisely identified by generic name(s), dose(s) and route(s) of administration. Also mention about approval of institutional ethical committee and consent procedure.

D.4.f) Statistics: Clearly state the statistical methods used in the design and analysis of the studies. Where relevant the exact statistical tests must be stated with reference to confidence intervals.

D.4.g) Results: Present in logical sequence in text, tables and illustrations, avoid repeating the data. All tables must be prepared using the insert Table option on the MS-Word menu or pasted from MS-Excel.

D.4.h) Tables: Tables are preferable over graphs, so try to present your results in tables as far as possible i.e. for trends, box plots, scattered diagram etc.

• Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material.
• Tables should be less than 10 columns and 25 rows.
• Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
• Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
• Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.
• Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote.
• For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †,‡, §, || ¶, * * , † †, ‡ ‡.
• Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. The tables along with their number should be cited at the relevant place in the text.

D.4.i) Discussion: Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow, the implications and the limitations; relate to other relevant studies; avoid repeating the details given in introduction and/or results.

D.4.j) Conclusion: It should be based on the observation of the present study only. Avoid stating general fact about the subject. It should give answer to the questions raised in objectives.

D.4.k) Acknowledgements: For contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, with prior permission from the persons being acknowledged. Limit to ten.

D.5) References:

Accuracy of citation is the author's responsibility. The reference style is given below and conforms to the Vancouver style.

Each reference should be assigned a number, consecutively in the order of mention in the text. The original number should be reused each time the same reference is cited in the text. The number should be placed in the text in superscript format without any brackets e.e. text¹, outside the full-stops and commas and inside colons and semi-colons. When multiple references are cited at a given place in the text, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers that are inclusive and use commas to separate non-inclusive numbers (e.g. ^2-5,7,10).

A detailed guideline on Vancouver Reference Style can be availed from the following link:

https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/referencing/vancouver/reference-list

The list of references should be given at the end of the paper. Where there are 3 or less authors, list ALL the authors. Where there are more than 3 authors, use et al after the third author. Briefly the reference style is as follows:

Examples:

D.5.a) Citing a book:

<Author/s>. <Title of book>, <edition of book>. <Place of publication>: <Publisher>; <year of publication>. p<page number/s>.

Example: K Park. Park’s Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine, 21st ed. Jabalpur: Bhanot Publishers; 2011. p 358.

D.5.b) Citing a journal:

<Author/s>. <Title>. <Name of Journal> <Publication Year>; <Volume(Issue)>: <Page no.>.

Example: Singh SS, Vijayachari P, Sinha A, et al. Clinico-epidemiological study of hospitalized cases of severe leptospirosis. Indian J Med Res. 1999;109:94-9.

D.5.c) Citing conferences:

Example: Kakkilaya BS, Motha B, Rajeev, et al. Investigation of a leptospirosis outbreak in Surathkal. In Bundy D, Warrel D, Co-Chairman, Scientific committee. Final programme and abstract book, Oxford 2000, New Challenges in tropical medicine and parasitology, 2000 Sep 18-22; Oxford. Cheshire: Complete Congress Services Ltd; 2000. p.139.

D.5.d) Citing Internet:

<Title of Page>. Available at: <web address>. Accessed on <Month day, year>.

Example: International Chemical Safety Cards: Chloroaniline. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ipcs/ipcs0026.html. Accessed May 18^th, 2001.

D.5.e) Citing a report:

<Agency to whom the report belongs>. <Title>, <edition/volume (if applicable>. <Place of publication>: <Publisher>; <year of publication>.p<page number/s>.
Example: World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia. HIV /AIDS in the South-East Asia Region 2009. New Delhi, India: WHO; 2009. p17.

E) Review process:

Papers will usually be acknowledged upon receipt. All scientific papers will be independently peer reviewed to determine the originality of research and the viability of publication. Anonymity of authors/institutions and referees to each other shall be maintained so that the review process remains uninfluenced. Reviewers' comments may be sent to authors when revisions to the paper are found necessary. Generally, the review process shall be completed within one to three months of submission. After one month of submission, the author can mail to executive editor to verify the status of their submitted articles. The estimate time of manuscript processing is around 10 to 12 weeks from the date of submission.

The editorial decision is final. The editorial board reserves the right to make revisions aimed at greater clarity or conformity of style.

For further details: contact@njcmindia.com

F) Printing and Manuscript handling charges:

Pulication charges for Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Systematic Reviews/Meta-analysis, Short Research Articles and Case Reports are Rs. 15,000/- for Indian Authors and USD 350.00 for foreign Authors.

For any other type of article, contact us at contact@njcmindia.com.

Discount on publication fees is available for special cases. Author needs to send a request for discount with proper justification. The Publisher will decide the discount considering the justification provided by author. 

The publisher reserves the right to change publication charges or any other charges at any time without prior notice.

In case of any questions or query, please fill free to contact us on  contact@medscipublications.com.

The charges to be paid only after acceptance of the article. Authors will be notified for the payment of publication charges on acceptance of the article.

Account detail for online transfer:

• A/c Name: National Journal of Community Medicine
• A/c No:       0290102000067777
• A/c type:    Current account
• Bank:           IDBI
• Branch:       Varachha  - Harirambapa Nagar, Varachha, Surat
• IFSC Code:  IBKL0000290
• MICR code: 395259006

A separate invoice will be sent to the foreign authors on acceptance of the article. 

G) Copyright and License notice

Authors contributing to National Journal of Community Medicine agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons-Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0) allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially, under the condition that appropriate credit is given, that a link to the license is provided, and that you indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to Medsci Publications.