Tropical Medicine & International Health

Edited by:
H. van Asten, S. Cairncross, S. Jaffar, T. Junghanss, P. Van der Stuyft and R.D. Walter

Online ISSN: 1365-3156
Frequency: Monthly
Current Volume: 15 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 33/105 Public, Environmental & Occupational Health; 4/15 Tropical Medicine
Impact Factor: 2.312

TopAuthor Guidelines

GENERAL POINTS
We welcome original research papers, systematic reviews, short communications and opinion papers.

TMIH is a peer-reviewed journal. After initial screening, which takes only a few days, manuscripts are sent to two referees. If appropriate, a statistical reviewer is involved. On average, we will report back to authors within 6-8 weeks with a first decision.

There are no page charges. We strongly recommend that authors limit the length of their papers to 3500 words. We copy-edit papers for conciseness, and may ask authors to shorten them considerably.

Short contributions
Accepted short papers containing de novo science will be published as Short Communications; contributions in response to papers previously published in TMIH will appear as Letters to the Editors. Short Communications should be no longer than 1500 words. They must have an abstract and references, but the main body of the text does not have to follow the Introduction - Method - Results - Discussion (IMRD) format.

Supplements
TMIH welcomes coverage of international meetings whose published research or policy resolutions are relevant to the fields of tropical medicine and international health. The proceedings of conferences, encompassing full papers or abstracts and possibly introductory comments to their various sections, can be published as supplements for a page charge. Full-text reproductions of conference contributions will be refereed. If you are planning a supplement, please contact Susanne Groener (susanne.groener@lshtm.ac.uk) in advance.

SUBMITTING THE MANUSCRIPT

We publish in English, but provide French and Spanish translations of the abstracts of research papers.

For greater transparency and speed, our manuscript handling is web-based. Please go to our website at Editorial Manager:

http://www.editorialmanager.com/tmih

and follow the instructions.

You should have the following information and documentation ready when you post your manuscript to the website:

• each author's name, address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address if possible;
• each author's affiliation and qualifications;
• the name of the author who is to deal with correspondence and proofs; this person must have a functioning email address;
• An authorship statement, which describes author's role in the research process and in preparing the manuscript, such as:
  conception and design of the study; analysis and interpretation of data; drafting the paper or substantially revising it.
  To be an author, a contributor must have participated in at least two or these categories.
• For animal or human studies that involve data collected actively and purposely, we require a signed statement from the corresponding or primary author that ethical approval was granted by the Ministry of Health or another appropriate institution in the country where the research was conducted and by ehtical approval committees of affiliated research institutions elsewhere, if applicable.

Text

The text should follow the IMRD format. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words long and structured into Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions.

Statistics
Authors should refer to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals http://www.icmje.org/index.html') published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Briefly, the methods section should include a clear description of the eligibility and exclusion criteria for the study, and a description of the source population. Statistical methods should be described with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (e.g. percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which these were calculated. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', correlations', and sample'. Appropriate indicators of uncertainty (such as confidence intervals) should be presented, and reliance solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P values should be avoided as this fails to convey important information about effect size.

Conflict of Interest
Authors must acknowledge and declare any sources of funding and potential conflicting interest, such as receiving funds or fees by, or holding stocks and shares in, an organisation that may profit or lose through publication of your paper. Declaring a competing interest will not lead to automatic rejection of the paper, but we would like to be made aware of it.

Standards of Publication
We encourage authors to use the following tools to ensure good practice in reporting their work:

• The CONSORT checklist of items to include when reporting randomised trials (http://www.consort-statement.org/);
• The STARD checklist of items for reporting studies on diagnostic accuracy (http://www.consort-statement.org/stardChecklist.PDF);
• The MOOSE checklist for meta-analyses of observational studies (http://www.consort-statement.org/news/news.html#moose);
• The QUOROM checklist for meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials (http://www.consort-statement.org/QUOROM.pdf).

Related papers
Authors must declare manuscripts in preparation or submitted elsewhere that are closely related to the manuscript to be considered.

REVISIONS
Most authors are asked to make amendments to their papers before we accept them. If you have been asked for a revision, please prepare it within three months. It it takes you longer, the revised paper will be treated as a new submission. The revised paper is either assessed by the editor, or, in case of a major revision, returned to the referees. Again, this process may take up to 8 weeks.

AFTER YOUR PAPER HAS BEEN ACCEPTED

Copyright Transfer Agreement
Authors will be required to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) for all papers accepted for publication. Signature of the CTA is a condition of publication and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless a signed form has been received. (US Federal Government employees need to complete the Author Warranty sections, although copyright in such cases does not need to be assigned). After submission, authors will retain the right to publish their paper in various media/circumstances (please see the form for further details). To assist authors an appropriate form will be supplied by the editorial office. Alternatively, authors may like to download a copy of the form. Upon acceptance, please return your completed form via email or fax to:

Tannie Tan
Production Editor
Journal Content Management
Wiley-Blackwell

Tel: +65-6511-8028
Fax: +65-6511-8288
Email: ttan@wiley.com

You will receive a letter informing you that your paper has been accepted. We will also ask the corresponding author for the signed CTA and a signed statement declaring that:

• all authors have agreed and authorised the accepted version of the manuscript;
• the description of each author's contribution is correct;
• that the corresponding author is authorised to sign the copyright form on behalf of the others.

Publication of your paper will be postponed until we have received both documents. Faxes are acceptable initially but must be followed by signed originals.

On average papers are published within 5-6 months, and online within 2-3 months.

Colour illustrations are also welcome but will incur a charge. Therefore, please note that if there is colour artwork in your manuscript when it is accepted for publication, Blackwell Publishing require you to complete and return a colour work agreement form before your paper can be published. This form can be downloaded as a PDF from the internet. The web address for the form is: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/SN_Sub2000_X_CoW.pdf

Online production tracking
Authors can track their article - once it has been accepted - through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The corresponding author will receive an e-mail with a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor for more details on online production tracking.

Proofs

The corresponding author will receive an email containing a link to a web site. The proof can be downloaded as PDF (portable document format) file from this site. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

OnlineEarly
TMIH is covered by Blackwell Publishing's OnlineEarly service. OnlineEarly articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Articles are therefore available as soon as they are ready, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled print issue. OnlineEarly articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. The nature of OnlineEarly articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so OnlineEarly articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.

OnlineOpen

OnlineOpen is a pay-to-publish service from Blackwell that offers authors whose papers are accepted for publication the opportunity to pay up-front for their manuscript to become open access (i.e. free for all to view and download) via the Blackwell website. Each OnlineOpen article will be subject to a one-off fee of $3000 to be met by or on behalf of the Author in advance of publication. Upon online publication, the article (both full-text and PDF versions) will be available to all for viewing and download free of charge. The print version of the article will also be branded as OnlineOpen and will draw attention to the fact that the paper can be downloaded for free online. If you wish your paper to be OnlineOpen you are required to complete the payment form: Online Open Form and return it via email or fax to the Production Editor, Tannie Tan (ttan@wiley.com, fax +65-6511-8288).

Offprints
Instead of offprints, the corresponding author receives a PDF of the paper which can be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes by all authors.

Author archive
Author Material Archive Policy. Please note that unless specifically requested, Blackwell Publishing will dispose of all hardcopy or electronic material submitted 2 months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the editorial office or production editor as soon as possible if you have not yet done so.