Basic Information
Epidemiology and Health Services (Epidemiologia e Serviços de Saúde) is a scientific quarterly journal, with open-access, edited by the General Coordination for the Development of Epidemiology in Health Services, Department of Management in Health Surveillance of the Health Surveillance Secretariat of the Brazilian Ministry of Health (CGDEP/SVS/MS). Its main mission is to disseminate epidemiological knowledge applicable to surveillance, prevention and disease control relevant to Public Health, aiming to improve services offered by the Brazilian National Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS). Epidemiology and Health Services journal is the continuation of SUS Epidemiological Report (Informe Epidemiológico do SUS - IESUS), created in 1992 after the constitution of the National Center of Epidemiology (CENEP). In 2003, after the foundation of SVS, it was renamed Epidemiology and Health Services (from volume 12, issue 1). Its abbreviation is Epidemiol. Serv. Saúde. |
Indexing
The articles published by Epidemiol. Serv. Saúde are indexed or summarized in:
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Intellectual Property
The published articles are the authors' responsibility and do not necessarily express the Ministry of Health view. The total or partial reproduction is allowed, as long as the source is mentioned and it is not for selling or any other commercial purpose. All of the journal’s content, except where identified, is licensed by Creative Commons License, type BY-NC. |
Sponsors
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General Editor
| Leila Posenato Garcia, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, Brasília, DF - Brasil |
Executive Editor
| Elisete Duarte, Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde, Ministério da Saúde, Brasília, DF - Brasil |
Editors
Associate Editors
Editor for systematic reviews
Editor for statistical methods
Assistent editors
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Editorial Committee
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Editorial Production
Editorial assistant
Executive Secretary
Portuguese proofreading
English translation and proofreading
Spanish proofreading
Layout
Normalization
Electronic edition
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Scope and Policy
Epidemiology and Health Services: journal of the Brazilian National Health System (RESS) is a scientific open-access journal, published quarterly in electronic and print format, edited by the General Coordination for the Development of Epidemiology in Health Services, Department of Management in Health Surveillance of the Health Surveillance Secretariat of the Brazilian Ministry of Health (CGDEP/DGVES/SVS/MS). Its main mission is to disseminate epidemiological knowledge applicable to surveillance, prevention and disease control relevant to Public Health, aiming to improve services offered by the Brazilian National Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS). RESS follows the guidance of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, available at http://www.icmje.org/ (English) and http://www.goo.gl/nCN373 (Portuguese) - also known as "Vancouver Style" - and endorses the ethical principles for publishing specified by the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) code of conduct, available at http://publicationethics.org/files/Code of Conduct_2.pdf. RESS has a Statement on Publication Ethics, available at http://ress.iec.gov.br/ress/home/carregarPagina?lang=pt&p=eticaPublica, which expresses the ethical commitment of our journal - as well as of all the individuals involved in the articles publication at RESS, including authors, ad hoc reviewers, the editor-in-chief, all the other editors, the Secretariat of Health Surveillance (SVS/MS), and the publishing house of the Ministry of Health - through the adoption of good practices on scientific publication. |
Form and preparation of manuscripts
The journal’s Editorial Board welcomes manuscripts in the following types of manuscripts: a) Original article - unpublished research findings in one or more of the diverse thematic areas within surveillance, prevention and control of diseases, relevant to public health, such as communicable diseases, chronic non-communicable diseases, health situation analysis, health promotion, occupational health surveillance, environmental health surveillance, responses to public health emergencies, health surveillance policies and management, and epidemiology development in health services (words limit: 3,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references; up to five tables and/or figures); b) Review article b.1) Systematic review article - presentation of a summary of original study results with the purpose of answering a specific question; articles must describe in detail the process used to search for original studies and the criteria for their inclusion in the review; they may or may not present the procedure for obtaining the quantitative synthesis of the results in meta-analysis format (words limit: 3,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references; up to five tables and/or figures). b.2) Narrative review article - a critical analysis of published material, an in-depth discussion about a relevant topic to public health or an update on a controversial or emerging subject; it must be prepared by an expert in the area, invited by the editors (words limit: 3,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references; up to five tables and/or figures). c) Research note - a brief report on final or partial results (previous notes) of original research, relevant to the journal’s scope (words limit: 1,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references; up to three tables and/or figures); d) Experience report - a description of an experience in epidemiology, surveillance, prevention and control of diseases, relevant to public health; to be submitted at the editors’ invitation (words limit: 2,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references; up to four tables and/or figures); e) Opinion article - a concise account of specific subjects expressing the authors’ qualified opinion; to be submitted at the editors’ invitation by an expert in the subject (words limit: 1,500 excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references; up to two tables and/or figures); f) Debate - a theoretical article prepared by an expert invited by the editors, which will be criticized and commented by means of replies signed by other invited experts (words limit: 3,500 for the article excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references;, 1,500 for each reply or rejoinder, excluding abstracts, tables, figures and references). RESS welcomes letters (words limit: 400) with brief comments or criticisms, usually related to an article published in the most recent previous edition. Letters may be published by the editors’ decision and a reply from the commented article’s authors will be published along with the letter. Other formats may be accepted by the editors such as Interviews with personalities or authorities (words limit: 800) Reviews of books pertinent to RESS’ scope published in the past two years (words limit: 800) and Thematic series articles. Authors’ responsibility Statement of Liability The authors of the manuscript entitled (manuscript title), submitted to Epidemiology and Health Services: journal of the Brazilian National Health System, hereby state that: a. This manuscript is original and none of its contents, whether complete, partial or substantial, has been published or submitted for publication in another journal, or any other type of publication, either in printed or electronic formats; b. All the manuscript’s listed authors have effectively participated in the study and take public responsibility for its contents; c. The final version of the manuscript has been approved by all authors; d. None of the authors have conflicting interests with regard to this manuscript (or) there are conflicts of interest among the authors of this manuscript (if conflict(s) exist, they have to be mentioned in here). (Include the place, date and the authors’ names, all of whom without exception must sign the Statement of Liability). The statement of liability items are in the first step of the online submission of manuscripts. Moreover, the document signed by all authors is to be scanned and attached on step 4 - Transfer of complementary documents. Authorship criteria Funding sources Conflicts of interest Ethics in research involving human subjects
For systematic reviews, it is desirable PROSPERO protocol number (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews). Acknowledgements Right to reproduce manuscripts The authors must be in accordance to the following terms: a) The authors keep the copyrights and grant this journal the right of first-hand publishing. The work will also be licensed by Creative Commons Attribution, which allows sharing the work, as long as the authorship and initial publication of the articles are acknowledged. b) The authors can sign separate additional contracts for non-exclusive distribution of the version published in this journal (e.g.: publishing in an institutional repository, or as a book chapter), as long as the authorship and initial publication of the articles are acknowledged. c) Authors are authorized and even encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (e.g.: in institutional repositories or in their personal site), any time before or during the editorial process, since it can bring positive changes, and also raise the impact and citation of the published work. |
Preparing manuscripts for submission
When preparing the manuscripts, authors must follow the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals. The original version is available at http://www.icmje.org. The translated version into Portuguese was published at RESS v. 23, No. 3, 2015 and is available at https://goo.gl/HFaUz7. The manuscript structure should conform to the reporting guidelines, according to the study design. The main guidelines, relevant to RESS scope are described below.
Manuscript format Manuscripts are to be written in Portuguese. They must be double-spaced using Times New Roman font, size 12, in Rich Text Format (RTF) or Word Document (DOC), using standard A4 size pages with 3 cm margins. Footnotes will not be accepted. Title page
Resumo (Abstract in Portuguese) A single paragraph containing up to 150 words, covering the following sections: Objetivo (Objective); Métodos (Methods); Resultados (Results); and Conclusão (Conclusion). For the experience report, the abstract is to be written in one paragraph, containing 150 words, not necessarily in structured format. Palavras-chave (Keywords in Portuguese) Four to six keywords must be selected from the list of Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS), a vocabulary structured by the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information, also known by its original name as Biblioteca Regional de Medicina (BIREME), (Regional Library of Medicine). DeCS have been created to standardize a unique language for scientific document indexing and retrieval (available at http://decs.bvs.br). Abstract English version of the abstract in Portuguese, having the following sections: Objective; Methods; Results; and Conclusion. Keywords English version of the same descriptors selected from DeCS. Resumen (Abstract in Spanish) Spanish version of the abstract, having the following sections: Objetivos; Métodos; Resultados; and Conclusión. Palabras llave (Keywords in Spanish) Spanish version of the same descriptors selected from DeCS. Complete manuscript text Original article and research note manuscripts should comprise the following sections in this order: Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; and References. Tables and figures will be referred to in the Results section and included at the end of the article, whenever is possible, or in a separate file (in an editable format). Introduction - Presentation of the problem that generated the research question, the given reason and study aim, in this order. Methods - Description of the study design, the studied population, the methods used, including, when applicable, the calculation of the sample size, sampling methods, data collection procedure, studied variables and their categories, data processing and analysis procedures; when studies involve humans or animals, the relevant Ethical Considerations must be addressed (see Ethics in research involving human subjects section). Results - Presentation of results achieved. It may refer to tables and figures self-explanatory (see item on Tables and Figures below). Discussion - Comments on results achieved, their implications and limitations; comparison between the study and other publications and scientific literature relevant to the subject. The last paragraph should contain the conclusions and the results’ implications to health services or policies. Acknowledgements - To be included after the Discussion section. They must be limited to the necessary minimum. Authors’ contributions - A paragraph describing each author’s specific contribution. References - The numeric system must be used in the text when citing references; the numbers must be placed in superscript above the text, without brackets, immediately after the citation and separated from each other by commas; in the case of references with sequential numbers, they should be separated by a hyphen, numbering only the first and the last reference of the sequential range (e.g.: 7,10-16); they must be placed after the authors’ contribution section. The references are to be listed in the same order as the citations in the text; in each reference the first six authors may be cited, if there are more than six authors the expression et al is to be used to refer to the remainder; the titles of journals, books and publishers are to be written in full; no more than 30 citations are to be made; for systematic review and meta-analysis articles there is no limit to the number of citations but the manuscript must keep to the word number limit defined in these Instructions; Reference format must be in accordance with ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (available at www.icmje.org), with adaptations as per the following examples: Journal articles 1. Damacena GN, Szwarcwald CL, Malta, DC, Souza Júnior PRB, Vieira MLFP, Pereira CA, et al. O processo de desenvolvimento da Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde no Brasil, 2013. Epidemiol Serv Saude. 2015 abr-jun; 24(2):197-206. Books Book chapters When the chapter’s author is not the book’s author When the book’s author is the chapter’s author Conference proceedings Ordinances and Laws Electronic references Theses and dissertations Tables and figures Original and review articles should contain up to 5 tables and/or figures, in total. For research notes and experience reports, the limit is 3 tables and/or figures; and for experience reports, four tables and/or figures. Figures and tables should be put at the end of the manuscript, when possible, or in separate files sorted as cited in the text, always in editable format. Tables and figures titles should be concise and avoid the use of abbreviations or acronyms. If these must be used in titles, they should be explained with subtitles at the bottom of each table or figure. Tables and figures must be presented in black and white or grey shades only. Tables and charts (classified and titled in the same way as figures), should be presented in text files. The following formats will be accepted: DOC (Microsoft Word), RTF (Rich Text Format) or ODT (Open Document Text). Organization charts and flowcharts must be presented in text format or vectorial format. The following types of files will be accepted: DOC (Microsoft Word), RTF (Rich Text Format), ODT (Open Document Text), WMF (Windows MetaFile), EPS (Encapsuled PostScript) or SVG (Scalable Vectorial Graphics). Maps should be presented in vectorial format. The following types of files are accepted: WMF (Windows MetaFile), EPS (Encapsuled PostScript) or SVG (Scalable Vectorial Graphics). Maps originally produced in image format and later saved in vectorial format will not be accepted. Graphs must be sent in vectorial format. The following types of files are accepted: XLS (Microsoft Excel), ODS (Open Document Spreadsheet), WMF (Windows MetaFile), EPS (Encapsuled PostScript) or SVG (Scalable Vectorial Graphics). Satellite images and photographs must be presented in the following types: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) or BMP (Bitmap). The minimum resolution must be 300dpi, with minimum size of 17,5cm width, and file size limit of 10Mb. Use of acronyms The use of uncommon acronyms should be avoided. Their use should be employed only when they are recognized by the literature; valuing the manuscript clarity. Some recognized acronyms are: WHO, HIV, AIDS. Acronyms with up to three letters should be written in upper case letters (e.g. DOU, USP, OIT). When unknown acronyms are used for the first time the words they represent must be written in full, followed by the acronym in brackets. Acronyms and abbreviations comprised only of consonants should be written in upper case letters. Acronyms with four letters or more should be written in capital letters, if each one of them is pronounced separately (e.g. BNDES, INSS, IBGE). In the case of acronyms with four letters or more that form a word comprised of vowels and consonants, only the first letter should be capitalized (e.g. Funasa, Datasus, Sinan). Acronyms including upper and lower case letters should be written as originally created (e.g. CNPq, UnB). Foreign acronyms (not Brazilian ones) are recommended to be translated into Portuguese if such translation is universally accepted. If there is no corresponding acronym in Portuguese, the original acronym is to be used even if the full name in Portuguese does not correspond to the acronym (e.g. Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura - Unesco). Some foreign acronyms have been adopted in popular communication as a name, such as the word AIDS in English. The Ministry of Health National AIDS Commission (CNAIDS) has decided to recommend that all Ministry documents and publications may refer to the acronym by its original English name, but in lower case letters: aids (BRASIL. Fundação Nacional de Saúde. Manual de editoração e produção visual da Fundação Nacional de Saúde. Brasília: Funasa, 2004. 272p.). Check the electronic set of acronyms of the Ministry of Health. |
Manuscript analysis and acceptance
Only manuscripts having the indicated format and containing subjects relevant to the journal’s scope will be accepted. In the case of studies involving human subjects, a preliminary analysis will be made to verify their potential for being published and being of interest to the journal’s readers. Manuscripts not meeting these requirements will not be accepted. The Journal adopts Ephorus and iThenticate systems for identifying plagiarism. Manuscripts considered relevant to be published will go through the editorial process, composed by the following stages: 1) Technical review - it is conducted by the Editorial Board. It consists basically on reviewing aspects of form and scientific writing, so the manuscript fits into all the aspects from the authors’ instructions and is able to start the external peer review process. 2) External peer review - it is conducted by at least two reviewers who do not belong to the Editorial Board (ad hoc reviewers), that present solid knowledge on the manuscript topic. On this stage, the ad hoc reviewers are supposed to assess the scientific merit and the manuscript format, making constructive critics to its improvement. RESS adopts the system of double-blind review, in which the ad hoc reviewers do not know who the authors are and are not named in the review sent to the authors. The ad hoc reviewers must follow the ethics guidelines recommended by the COPE, available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf 4) Editorial Committee final review - after the manuscript is pre-approved for publishing by the editorial board, one of the members of the Editorial Committee, with knowledge on the topic, will assess it. On this stage, the manuscript can be considered as approved and ready for publishing, approved with adjustment to be done or not approved for publishing. It is important to highlight that, at all the stages, more than one review round may be necessary. The considerations will be sent to the authors with a defined timetable to be returned. The authors are recommended to pay attention to communications that will be sent to the e-mail address informed on the submission, as well as to observe the deadlines to answer. Not observing the deadline, mainly when there is no justification, may be a reason to stop the manuscript editorial process. Once manuscripts have been approved for publication but still require small adjustments or corrections, the journal’s editors reserve the right to do so. Electronic page proof Authors requiring any further information about these instructions can contact the journal’s secretariat by e-mail: ress.svs@gmail.com or revista.svs@saude.gov.br. Correspondence |
Submitting the manuscripts
There are no fees for submission, evaluation or publication of articles. Manuscripts are to be submitted to Sistema SciELO de Publicação. In case the authors do not receive any submission confirmation from RESS Secretariat, they should contact the journal through the alternative electronic address: ress.svs@gmail.com As supplementary file, the Statement of Liability, signed by all authors, must be attached in PDF format. The authors may choose up to three possible reviewers who are experts on the manuscript’s specific subject. Authors also have the option of indicating up to three peer reviewers to whom they would not like their manuscript to be submitted. The journal’s editors will decide whether or not to accept the authors’ suggestions. Pre-submission checklist 1. Format: A4 size paper with 3 cm margins, Times New Roman font, size 12, double-spaced, numbered pages.
3. Abstract in English, Resumo in Portuguese and Resumen in Spanish for original articles, review articles and research notes, in structured format: objective, methods, results and conclusion. Palavras-chave/Keywords/Palabras clave selected from the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS), available at the website (http://decs.bvs.br). 4. Manuscript: original articles, review articles and research notes must contain the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Please, observe the words limit for each manuscript type. 5. Inform the approval number given by the Research Ethics Committee and the clinical trial registration number or of the systematic review; and other ethical considerations in the last paragraph of Methods section. 6. A paragraph mentioning the authors’ contributions. 7. Acknowledgment only with the consent of persons mentioned. 8. References standardized as per ICMJE (Vancouver Style), numbered in the same order as they appear in the text; ensure that all are cited in the text and that their order of citation corresponds to the order shown in the References list at the end of the manuscript. 9. Tables and figures - no more than five for original and review articles; no more than three for research notes; and no more than four for experience reports. 10. Statement of Liability, signed by all authors. Updated on September, 2017. |
