Author Guidelines

Information for Contributors

The Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care follows the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals as published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997 (336: 309-316). The Journal accepts various types of contributions, including original research, reports, critical and analytical reviews, case reports, short research reports, editorials and commentaries commissioned by the editorial board, letters to the editor related to previously published content, book reviews, reports from professional conferences and meetings, and continuing education. It also encourages submissions of high-quality systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, umbrella reviews, and secondary data analyses, which aim to advance knowledge, inform policy, strengthen practice, or guide future research and decision-making. All articles should be methodologically rigorous, use relevant reporting guidelines, and be based on appropriate research questions or policy priorities.

Please note the following when submitting your materials to the JCMPHC.

- Manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Additionally, the studies must have undergone appropriate ethical review.

- Authors are required to sign a letter confirming that all contributors accept the transfer of copyright of any accepted and published articles to the Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care. This letter must accompany the manuscript submission.

- If there is a desire to reproduce any material for which copyright already exists, permission must be obtained from the copyright holders.

- The editorial board reserves the right to reject any submissions they find unsuitable for publication, and its decision will be final.

- Furthermore, the editorial board and publishers do not assume responsibility for the views expressed by the authors within their research.

Manuscripts may be submitted either via email or through the journal's online platform.

Editor-in-Chief,

Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care

E-mail: editorjcmphc@gmail.com 

Journal website: https://jcmphc.org/    

Manuscripts

A few formatting guidelines must be followed when submitting a manuscript to the journal. First, the document should be double-spaced with one-inch margins and 12-point font. The right-hand side should not be justified. The editors may adjust the style to maintain uniformity and ensure compliance with the journal's guidelines. 

*Please note that non-compliant manuscripts will not be reviewed.

The paper should be divided into the following sections:

Abstract: 

The manuscript should be divided into sections. The first section should consist of a structured abstract with a maximum of 250 words, organized into subsections for background, methods, results, and conclusion. Up to six keywords should also be included, and the word count for the abstract should be specified. Short articles, letters to the editor, commentaries, and reviews are exempt from this format. 

Text:

The cover page should include the article title and the corresponding author's details (affiliation, full postal address, telephone number, fax number, and email address). The full names, affiliations, and contact details of the co-authors should also be clearly indicated. These details should only appear on the cover page, not any other page in the manuscript.

The subsequent pages should be ordered as follows: abstract, keywords, main text, acknowledgment (on a separate page), references, appendix, figure captions, tables, and figures. Tables and figures should not be placed in the main text. The full word count should include all text, including that within tables, figures, references, etc. All pages must be numbered in the bottom right-hand corner. The main text should be arranged in the following order: Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion, with each section starting on a new page.

Tables and Illustrations:

Please ensure that all tables and figures are on separate sheets of paper and are clearly labelled.  Tables should be consecutively numbered using Arabic numerals and have a suitable caption.  Please exclude vertical and horizontal internal lines. Tables should complement, not duplicate results already presented in the manuscript. Footnotes should be typed below the table and referred to using superscript lowercase letters. All illustrations should be provided in camera-ready form and suitable for reproduction, which may include reduction without retouching. Photographs, charts, and diagrams should be referred to as "figures" and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred to. Please indicate the appropriate places in the text where the tables and figures should be inserted.

References: 

Please use the Vancouver referencing style, which involves numbering references in the order they appear in the text. After a full stop, insert the numbers above the line each time a reference is cited (e.g., as noted in similar studies 1, 2). At the end of the article, type the numbered references double-spaced and include all authors' names and initials. The referencing format should adhere to the guidelines published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the British Medical Journal, 1998, volume 316, pages 401-405.

See the examples below for further guidance:

1. Journal articles

   (a) All authors should be listed if there are six or fewer; if there are more than six, list the first six and follow with et al.

Hogan MC, Foreman KJ, Naghavi M, Ahn SY, Wang M, Makela SM, et al. 

Maternal Mortality For 181 Countries, 1980-2008: A Systematic Analysis of Progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5. Lancet 2010; 375(9726): 1609-1623

  (b) Corporate Body/Organisation as Author

International Steering Committee. Uniform Requirement for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. Br. Med. J. 1962; 284: 1766-1770

  (c) No author

What Happened to Growth Monitoring? [Editorial]. Lancet 1992; II: 149,

2. Books

 (a) Books with personal authors

Hosmer DW, Lameshow S. Applied Logistic Regression. 2^nd edition. New York:  Wiley Series; 2004

  (b) Chapters with personal authors

Adesanya CA, Parry EHO, Larbi EB. The Heart and Circulation. In: Parry EHO (Ed) Principles of Medicine in Africa. 2^nd Edition, Oxford ELBS/Oxford University Press; 1984; 645-704.

  (c) Chapters with no authors

Respiratory Medicine. In: Tasker RC, McClure RJ, Acerini CL. (Eds). Oxford Handbook of Paediatrics, Oxford; 2010. 262-305

3. Internet resources

Thind A, Mohani A, Banerjee K, Hagigi F. Where to Deliver? Analysis of Choice of Delivery Location from a National Survey in India. BMC Public Health 2008; 8: 29 [cited March 21, 2009] Available from URL: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471- 2458/8/29)

NOTE: Authors should include the Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) of referenced articles in the reference section for all articles cited. 

Ethical Considerations: 

In the methods section, when reporting studies on human beings, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, which was revised in 2003 (available at https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/).

For prospective studies involving human participants, authors must report approval from a regional/national/institutional Ethics Committee or Review Board and obtain informed consent from adult participants. Assent is also required for child participants, with age requirements varying according to the guidelines. Use de-identification techniques to maintain confidentiality, especially with illustrative material. For animal experiments, specify adherence to institutional guidelines, National Research Council standards, or national laws regarding laboratory animal care. Evidence of local Ethics Committee approval for both human and animal studies must be provided on demand. Experimental procedures on animals should prioritize humane treatment, explicitly detailing the anaesthetics and analgesics used. Ethical standards must align with CPCSEA guidelines and the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki for human and animal studies.

* Note: The journal will not accept papers that are ethically unacceptable. All articles with original human or animal data must state ethics approval in the Methods section, including the ethics committee name and the assigned protocol number. 

The JCMPHC will address any ethical concerns related to the data of a submitted manuscript or published article. Furthermore, the Journal will adhere to due process in accordance with COPE guidelines and the recommendations of the FORCE11 & COPE Working Group to determine whether any actions regarding a dataset or article are necessary. We reserve the right to remove or disable access to a published article to address data fabrication or falsification, legal or ethical concerns, publication ethics issues, or breaches of journal policy.

Policy on plagiarism 

Manuscripts undergo antiplagiarism checks. Authors are warned against plagiarism and other forms of fraudulent behaviour. Where it is established that authors have submitted plagiarized manuscripts or are involved in other forms of fraudulent behaviour, the editors, after a thorough investigation, shall issue a rejoinder on the plagiarized or fraudulent article in the next edition of the journal, even if the article was published in an earlier edition of the journal.

Acknowledgment: 

In this section, authors should acknowledge those who have not met the authorship criteria outlined below.

Author Contributions:

Author contributions must be reported using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), which standardises the description of each author's specific contributions. Authors should indicate their role(s) from the 14 defined categories — including, but not limited to, Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft, and Writing – Review & Editing. Each author may be assigned one or more roles, and a single role may be shared by multiple contributors.

 Policy on Authorship Criteria: 

Only individuals who made significant contributions to the writing of the manuscript should be listed as authors. In addition, all authors listed in the manuscript should have contributed significantly to the conceptualization, design, collection, collation, analysis, and interpretation of the data. All authors should have been involved in writing the manuscript at the draft and revision stages. Also, they must have read and approved the final version. Other individuals involved in the research should be listed in the acknowledgment section. Any change in authorship (including author order) after the initial manuscript submission must be approved in writing by all authors.

Funding: The JCMPHC requires authors to disclose all sources of funding received for the research under the 'Funding' section at the end of the article.

Conflict of Interest: 

All manuscripts must have a ‘competing interests’ section listing all interests (financial and non-financial). If there are none, it should state, “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no competing interests.” Editors and reviewers must also declare any conflicts of interest and may be excluded from the peer review process if a conflict is identified.

Contributions to Joint Publication: 

A statement on the contribution of individual authors to a joint publication should be declared in this section.

Peer review process:

All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are reviewed by at least two independent experts in that field. In addition to the above peer review, a statistician will review manuscripts with a significant statistical component. The reviewers' comments will be communicated to the authors, even if the paper is rejected. All efforts will be made to ensure the review process is as short as possible.

Access policy:

 Full-text articles from the Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care are free online at AJOL. http://www.ajol.info/index.php/jcmphc and https://jcmphc.org/  

The JCMPHC website (https://jcmphc.org/) utilizes the Open Journal System (OJS) and is eligible for long-term digital preservation through inclusion in the LOCKSS or CLOCKSS archival systems.

Indexing:

Scopus, African Journals Online, Cross Ref, Asian Digital Library, Google Scholar, IJI Factor.

Charges:

• All manuscripts submitted for publication within Nigeria shall attract:

- A processing charge of Ten Thousand Naira (₦10,000.00) is required at the time of manuscript submission, and additional

- Publication charge of Fifty Thousand Naira (₦50,000.00) if the article is accepted for publication. (Manuscript acceptance fee)

• For contributors outside Nigeria:

- A single payment of One Hundred and Fifty U.S. Dollars ($150.00) will be required if the article is accepted for publication. (Manuscript acceptance fee)

All Charges should be paid into the Journal’s Naira (₦) or Dollar ($) account with United Bank for Africa (UBA) as applicable. 

The account details are as follows: 

1. Naira Account (₦)

 Bank: United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, 

 Branch: OAU Ile-Ife

Account Name: Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria 

Account Number: 1015504404 

Bank Sort Code: 033291640

Authors are to scan the teller and send it as an attachment to the Editor-in-Chief.

2. Dollar Account ($)

 Bank: United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, 

 Branch: GRA Ikeja

Account Name: Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria

Account Number: 3004086045 

Bank Sort Code: 033291640

Swift code: UNAFNGLA

Intermediary Bank (Through):  

CITIBANK NEW YORK, UNITED STATES

Swift code: CITIUS33

Routing no: 021000089

Account number: 36320321

  Authors are to scan the teller and send it as an attachment to the Editor-in-Chief.

For more information or inquiries, contact the Editorial Office: 

Prof. Kikelomo Ololade Wright, MBChB, MPH, MD, FMCPH

Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care (JCMPHC),

Department of Community Health and Primary Health Care

Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM)

1-5 Oba Akinjobi Road, Ikeja GRA

Lagos State, Nigeria

Email: editorjcmphc@gmail.com  

The JCMPHC is partly supported by.   TETFUND

Copyright: © 2026 JCMPHC. This article is open-access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/