Aim and Scope

The quarterly Journal of Health Sciences and Surveillance System is a non profitable periodical, common to the School of Health and the vice chancellor for Health at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The journal publishes original research papers, short communications, scientific notes, case reports, letter to editors, and review articles in English.

The scope of papers comprises all aspects of Health Sciences and Surveillance System. The Editorial Board would be glad to receive your original papers on any area of Health Sciences.

Submission Process

Manuscripts can be sent preferably through the on-line submission system: (http://jhsss.sums.ac.ir)

Journal Publication Policy on Charging Author/Authors

Since January 17, 2022, the payment of fee is mandatory for all types of manuscripts sent to the Journal of Heath Sciences and Surveillance System (JHSSS). Invited articles are exempt from the article charges.

Please note that manuscripts submitted to JHSSS for review and possible publication, will be processed only when the following conditions are met:

The fee for Iranian Authors should be deposited in the account number 2165035865 with Identity Code 6104337761915741 at Bank Mellat.

International Authors will receive an email from our journal to proceed with their payment.

Please make sure that a copy of your payment receipt is attached to your submission as an image file (upload it on to the journal site or send it to jhsss@sums.ac.ir).

It should be noted that all deposits are non-refundable and a paper may be rejected by the Editors without being sent for review. Furthermore, the article submission fee and acceptance fee are used to support journal related activities and cover editorial service and production of an article.

Peer Review Process

The articles are primarily evaluated by our editor-in-chief who check the articles for their scientific merits in concordance with our journal disciplines. Any methodological flaw, format, and non-compliance with journal’s instructions should be avoided. Then a submission code will be allocated and all the future contacts should be based on this code. Through a double-anonymized review the articles will then be reviewed by at least three external (peer) reviewers. Their comments will be passed to the authors and their responses to the comments with the reviewers’ comments will then be evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief, the Section Editor, and a final reviewer who can be a member of the Editorial Board. The final review process will be discussed in Editorial Board sessions on a regular basis and based on their comments, and the journal’s scope. The Editor-in-Chief will decide which articles should be published. It should be noted that articles submitted by the staff and editors of the JHSSS will also be subjected to peer review and the editor plays no role in the review or decision.

Ethical Consideration

The implemented guidelines are in accordance with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/#privacy).

The editorial office reserves the right to edit the submitted manuscripts in order to comply with the journal’s style.

In any case, the authors are responsible for the published material.

• Human and Animal Rights Statement:

The research that involves human beings (or animals) must adhere to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (http:// www.wma.net/e/ethicsunit/helsinki.htm).

Articles describing any experimental research on animals should include a statement of approval by the Ethical Committee of the institute where the work was done, mentioning that the study was carried out according to the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority. Before papers describing animal studies are accepted for publication in the Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, the authors must convince the editors that the work conformed to appropriate ethical standards. The care and use of experimental animals should comply with acceptable international animal welfare guidelines and policies.

• Informed Consent:

All patients and participants in a research project should be thoroughly informed about the aims of the study and any possible side effects of the drugs and interventions. Written informed consent from the participants or their legal guardians is necessary for any such studies. The Journal reserves the right to request the related documents. Articles that require informed consent should contain related statements in the “Methods” section.

• Authorship:

Based on the newly released Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, by the ICMJE, “an Author” is generally considered to be someone who meets the following conditions 1, 2, 3, and 4.

1-Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

AND

2-Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;

AND

3-Final approval of the version to be published;

AND

4-Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

• Conflict of Interest:

We request all the authors to inform us about any kinds of “Conflict of Interest” (such as financial, personal, political, or academic) that would potentially affect their judgment. General institutional support for an author's time on the work should be distinguished from direct overall funding of the work. An appropriate funding statement might be: “This study was funded by A; Dr. F's time on the work was supported by B.”

Authors are preferably asked to fill the uniform disclosure form available through: (http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf).

• Plagiarism:

The authors are not allowed to utilize verbatim text of previously published papers or manuscripts submitted elsewhere.

• Copyright:

Assignment of Copyright and Authorship Responsibilities. Your Article will not be published unless a Copyright Assignment Form has been signed and received by JHSSS (Available form http://jhsss.sums.ac.ir).

• Open Access Policy: 

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

You hereby warrant that “This article is an original work, has not been published before and is not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form either in printed or electronic form”.

• Retraction Policy:

 The JHSSS uses the COPE flowchart for Retraction of a published article (http://publicationethics.org/...) to determine whether a published article should be retracted.

• Complaints and appeals:

The “Journal of Health Sciences and Surveillance System” responds promptly to complaints and ensures there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further by sending an email to editor-in-chief of the journal. We follow the COPE's guidelines and flowcharts for handling  complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.

Requirements for Different Types of Articles

Original articles: Should contain a structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, materials (patients) and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgement (if applicable), and references sections, and maximum 4 tables and 4 figures. The length should not exceed 3000-3500 words excluding the references, abstract, figures and tables. 15-40 references should be stated for original articles.

Clinical trials: The format is similar to original articles. However, the CONSORT flow diagram should be added as a figure. RCTs should be registered at any RCT Registry approved by the WHO and their registration number should be mentioned in the title page. RCTs done in Iran must be registered at www.irct.ir.

Case studies: It should include a structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, case presentation, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgment (if any) and reference sections, and a maximum of 1 table and 3 figures. 5-10 reference mentioned. Case reports should ideallybe accompanied by relevant figures to document the findings. Patients' informed consent must be obtained to report their cases. The journal reserves the right to request the original informed informed consent.

Brief reports: Should contain a non-structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgement (if applicable), and references sections, and maximum 2 tables and figures. However, the word count should not exceed 2000 words. 10-15 references should be stated.

Case reports: Should contain a non-structured abstract, 3-5 keywords, introduction, case presentation, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgement (if applicable), and references sections, and maximum 1 table and 3 figures. 5-10 references should be stated. Case reports should optimally be accompanied by relevant figures to document findings. Informed consents should be obtained from the patients to report their cases. The Journal keeps the right to ask for original signed informed consents.

Review articles:

-Narrative reviews- Should contain at least 60 references. Abstract should be non-structured. The word count should not exceed 4500 words. Narrative reviews should critically assess the current knowledge of the field.

-Systematic reviews- Systematic reviews of RCTs or Observational Studies will be accepted by the Journal. The protocol of the study should adhere to PRISMA or MOOSE guidelines for systematic reviews of RCTs or Observational studies, respectively. Up to 40 references can be stated. Abstracts should be structured.

Letters to the Editor: Letters should be less than 750 words. Letters discussing articles published in the JHSSS should be submitted at most within 4 months after the publication of the main article. Letters will undergo peer review and will be edited for clarity. Up to 5 references should be stated.

Photo clinics: Figures that contain a significant medical point can also be accepted. Photo clinics should contain one or two high quality figures and a description of the figures no more than 500 words. Up to 5 references should be stated

Paper Preparations

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Technologies: At submission, the authors should disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work. Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work in the appropriate section if applicable, how they used it. For example, if AI was used for writing assistance, describe this in the acknowledgment section. If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, authors should describe this use in the methods. Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI. Humans must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.

Cover letter: The author should define that he or she will not resubmit the submitted article to another journal until the reviewing process will be completed. Also it should be indicated whether the authors have published or submitted any related papers from the same study.

Title Page: It should include:

1)    The title of the article;

2)    Authors’ names;

3)    Name of the institution where the work was done;

4)    Running title (short form of the main title presented on the top of pages);

5)    Complete telephone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

This page is unnumbered.

Abstract: It should be structured for original articles providing background/objective for the study; methods, results and conclusion altogether not exceeding 250 words. Number this as page 1. Abstracts of the other types of contributions should be non- structured, providing the essential information. When abstracting a review article a concise summary of the salient points and objectives should be addressed. The abbreviations should not preferably be mentioned in the abstract.

Keywords: Keywords are used for indexing purposes; each article should provide three to five keywords selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ 

Introduction: It should provide a context or background and specify the purpose or research objective of the study or observation.

Methods: It must indicate clearly the steps taken to acquire the information. Be sure that it includes only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was written. It should be detailed (Including: Controls, inclusion and exclusion criteria, etc) and may be separated into subsections. Repeating the details of standard techniques is best avoided. For reports of randomized controlled trials, the authors should refer to the CONSORT statement (http://www.consort-statement.org/).

It is better to present the details of the methods section as the following subtitles:

• Selection and Description of Participants
• Data Collection and Measurements
• Statistics

Reporting guidelines such as STROBE, STARD, and PRISMA would help you to produce high quality research and to provide all required information and evidence for related methodology. Authors are encouraged to refer to the SAGER guidelines for reporting of sex and gender information in study design, data analyses, results, and interpretation of findings: www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/sager-guidelines/. EQUATOR Network website would help you in using these guidelines. The software used for statistical analysis and description of the actual method should be mentioned.

Authors who used AI technology to conduct the study should describe its use in the methods section in sufficients details to enable replication of the approach. Including the tool used, version, and prompts where applicable.

Results: It should be presented in chronological sequence in the text, table, and illustration. Organize the results according to their importance. They should result from your own study. Tables and illustrations must be cited in order they appear in the text using Arabic numerals. Tables should be simple and should not duplicate information in the text of the paper. Figures should be provided only if they improve the article. For radiographic films, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as pictures of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, send the high resolution figures in jpeg format. Color photographs, if found to improve the article, would be published at no extra-charge at the print version of the journal. Type or print out legends for illustrations on a separate page, and explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.

Discussion: It should emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Possible mechanisms or explanations for these findings should be explored. The limitations of the study and the implications of the findings for future research or clinical practice should be explored.

Conclusion: Should state the final result and recommendation that the author(s) has (have) reached. Such results and recommendations should be derived from the researcher’s own study and the results of other studies should not be stated in this section.

Supplementary Materials: Supplemetary materials such as movie clips, questionnaires, etc, may be published on the online version of the journal.

Acknowledgments: Any technical help including general, financial, and material support or contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship. Use of AI for writing assistance should be reported in the acknowledgment section.

Authors’ Contributions: The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section.

Funding: Authors are requested to clearly identify all financial and material support for the research and related work—including grant identification number—at the time of submission.

Conflict of Interest: All authors are required to report potential conflicts of interest at the time of submission, presenting both relevant financial interests and any other relationships that could be deemed to influence the research.

References: They should be complied numerically according to the order of citation in the text in the Vancouver style. The numbers of references should not exceed 40 for original articles, 15 for brief, 10 for case reports, and for review articles not less than 60 references. For the references credited to more than 6 authors please provide the name of the first six authors and represent the rest authors by the phrase “et al.” For various references please refer to “the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers”. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/)

Referencing AI-generated material as the primary source is not acceptable.

References should be made to published articles rather than to abstracts whenever possible.

Listed below are sample references,

Journal Article:

• de Jonge EAL, Koromani F, Hofman A, Uitterlinden AG, Franco OH, Rivadeneira F, et al. Dietary acid load, trabecular bone integrity, and mineral density in an ageing population: The Rotterdam study. Osteoporos Int. 2017; 28(8):2357-65. doi: 10.1007/s00198-017-4037-9. PMID: 28405729; PMCID: PMC5524850.

Book:

• Guyton AC: Textbook of Medical Physiology. 8th ed. Philadelphia, PA, Saunders, 1996.
• Young VR. The role of skeletal muscle in the regulation of protein metabolism. In Munro HN, editor: Mammalian protein metabolism. Vol 4. San Diego; Academic; 1970. p. 585-674.

Web Site:

• Complementary/Integrative Medicine [Internet]. Houston: University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; c2007 [cited 2007 Feb 21]. Available from: http://www.mdanderson.org/departments/CIMER/.

Language and Style

It  should be in English language. The text must be clear and concise, conforming to accepted standards of English style and usage. Non-native English speakers may be advised to seek professional help with the language. All materials should be typed in double line spacing numbered page and numbered lines. Abbreviations should be standard and used just in necessary cases, after complete explanations in the first usage.

Correction of Errata

The journal will publish an erratum when a factual error in a published item has been documented.

For further information please contact the Editorial Office: Tel: +98 7137251001

You can contact us on social networks at: +989012722654

Email: jhsss@sums.ac.ir

Website: http://jhsss.sums.ac.ir