Guidelines for Contributors
1.2 ETHICAL ISSUES
The World Health Organization (WHO) publishes the results of research involving human subjects only if fully compliant with ethical principles, including the provisions of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (as amended by the 59th General Assembly, Seoul, the Republic of Korea, October 2008; available at: http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf) and with the additional requirements, if any, of the country in which the research was carried out. Any manuscript describing the results of such research must contain a clear statement to this effect and should specify that the free and informed consent of the subjects or their legal guardians was obtained and that the relevant institutional or national ethics review board approved the investigation. The Bulletin is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE; see: http://publicationethics.org). Issues involving publication ethics may be referred to this committee by the editors. WHO Ethics Review Committee clearance is required for papers that report research supported by WHO or that are authored or co-authored by someone who was a WHO staff member while the research was conducted.
1.3 COMPETING INTERESTS
A competing interest arises when a professional judgement concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). We ask all authors to disclose at the time of submission any competing interests that they may have. Examples of competing interests may be found at: http://www.icmje.org. Further information on competing interests is available at: http://www.who.int/Bulletin/volumes/83/9/645.pdf.
1.4 FUNDING
Authors should identify the sources that funded the work undertaken, affirm not having entered into an agreement with the funder that may have limited their ability to complete the research as planned, and indicate that they have had full control of all primary data.
1.5 APPEALS PROCESS
Authors of rejected papers can appeal against the decision by following the procedures outlined in an editorial published in the Bulletin (see: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/9/645.pdf.
2. Preparation and submission of manuscripts
2.1 CORRESPONDENCE
Manuscripts should be submitted to the Bulletin via our submissions web site (http://submit.bwho.org), where full instructions are given. Queries about online submissions should be sent to: bulletin.submit.ask@who.int Authors requiring assistance with online submission can contact the editorial office.
2.2 UNIFORM REQUIREMENTS
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals issued by the Vancouver Group (ICMJE). The complete document, updated in April 2010, is available at: http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html.
2.3 LANGUAGES
Manuscripts should be submitted in English and will be published in that language in the Bulletin; the abstracts are translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. Authors who have difficulty in preparing their manuscripts in English should contact the editorial office for advice.
2.4 AUTHORSHIP
On the manuscript’s title page authors should give their full names and the name, city and country of their institutions. The corresponding author must also provide a full postal address, which will be published with the e-mail address unless otherwise requested. Academic titles and the names of departments and subdepartments are unnecessary and are discouraged for reasons of space. If an author has several affiliations, only the most important one should be provided. The criteria for authorship described in the Uniform requirements (see above, 2.2) must be rigorously observed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work being reported to take public responsibility for the paper’s content and should describe in detail on the online submission system (not within the manuscript itself) his or her particular contribution. The Bulletin encourages submissions from authors in developing countries, and in line with this policy at least one author should have a professional affiliation in the country where the study was conducted.
2.5 LICENCE FOR PUBLICATION
If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author(s) will be asked to sign a statement granting exclusive licence for publication (not copyright) to the WHO. A copy of the statement is available at: http://submit.bwho.org/journals/bullwho/forms/licence.pdf. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce in their articles any material enjoying copyright protection. They should send the letter granting such permission to the editorial office when they submit their papers.
2.6 FIGURES, TABLES AND BOXES
These should be used only to enhance the understanding of the text, not to repeat what can be clearly communicated within the text. All tables, figures and boxes should be numbered consecutively (e.g. Fig. 1, Table 1 and Box 1).
2.7 ABSTRACTS
Abstracts should highlight the text’s most important points and should be provided for the following types of papers: Research, Systematic reviews, Policy & practice, base papers for Round tables and Lessons from the field. The abstract should not exceed 250 words. It appears in English at the beginning of the paper and in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish between the end of the text and the reference list. Structured abstracts are required for Research papers and Systematic reviews (Objective, Methods, Findings, Conclusion) and for Lessons from the field papers (Problem, Approach, Local setting, Relevant changes, Lessons learnt).
2.8 BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
The accuracy of all references is the authors’ responsibility and should be verified at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, the web site of the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the National Library of Medicine, United States of America. Authors should not provide digital object identifiers (dois) or PubMed identifiers (PMIDs) for the references; they are added by the Bulletin. Authors are responsible, however, for making certain that all URLs in the reference list are active when they submit their papers; they will be asked to update any obsolete URLs when they receive their edited papers for approval. References should be numbered consecutively as they occur in the text.
2.9 MAPS
Papers should contain no maps unless an important finding cannot be conveyed without them or unless they are needed to make an essential point. Maps that show international borders, partially or in full, must be created from one of the following sources, approved by the United Nations: http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/english/htmain.htm, http://www.unsalb.orgor http://apps.who.int/tools/geoserver and the vectorial EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file must be submitted.
Reporting of results of studies should follow best practices, as outlined in the following guidelines:
CONSORT for reports of randomized trials (http://www.equator-network.org)
TREND for reports of non-randomized evaluations of interventions (http://www.trend-statement.org/asp/trend/asp)
STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy (http://www.equator.network.org)
MOOSE for meta-analysis of observational studies (http://www.equator.network.org)
QUOROM for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized trials (http://www.equator.network.org)
STROBE for the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (http://www.equator.network.org)
Clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies should follow specific guidelines (available at: http://www.gpp-guidelines.org). All human trials that are phase 2a and above must be registered with a clinical trial registry (see: http://www.who.int/ictrp/en). Information on trial registration is available at: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/9/645.pdf.
Cochrane’s guidelines for systematic review of health promotion and public health interventions ( http://www.ph.cochrane.org).