Submissions
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- The submission is supplied as single or multiple Word files.
- Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
- The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
- The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
Original Research
An Original Research Article (up to 6000 words) follows a strict structure: Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References and with added paragraphs like Funding, Acknowledgement, Ethical considerations, and Authors´ contributions. SHAJ publishes articles based on quantitative, qualitative, or mixed designs, and authors should clearly disclose what is new knowledge and what actions are called for following the findings.
Short Communications
A short communication (up to 1500 words) presents important preliminary observations, results and data from pilot studies, or side issues/secondary findings in a larger study that do not warrant publication as a full paper.
Study Design
These types of articles (up to 6000 words) are intended to be methodological papers presenting the design, rationale and aims, as well as hypotheses and background data of, for example, a longitudinal/cohort study or an intervention study. This type of article sets the scene and could be referenced in forthcoming original research papers arising from the studies.
Educational Articles
These articles (up to 4000 words) will present the design, implementation and evaluation of educational initiatives to improve quality and outcome of basic and higher education as well as efforts to increase competence and performance of public health and healthcare service staff.
Capacity Building
Capacity building articles (up to 4000 words) are published to document how research infrastructure, human resources and capacity, and research design/intervention dealing with major public health issues have been developed, particularly in low-and middle-income countries. These articles should reflect how partnerships and collaborations are established and built over time, and how research capacities can be built and sustained with reference to the Somali situation and similar fragile contexts. The contribution of these articles to capacity building should be through scientific discussion of the issues rather than simple reporting of activities.
Reviews
SHAJ welcomes literature reviews (up to 6000 words) as well as systematic reviews on health, prevention, diagnostics and services of public health importance. SHAJ considers literature reviews in the form of narrative reviews, syntheses, etc. The systematic review is defined by The Cochrane Collaboration as a review that has a clearly formulated research question, uses explicit systematic methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research, and synthesizes data from studies that are included in the review. Statistical methods in the form of a meta-analysis may complement a systematic review. When submitting a systematic review and/or a meta-analysis, authors are encouraged to complete the PRISMA checklist as supporting information. Opinions, and commentaries, as well as book reviews, may also be considered under the scope of reviews.
Guidelines
SHAJ publishes guidelines (up to 4000 words) of relevance for public health and health care services in Somalia and other fragile states. The guidelines need to be presented both in paper and digital format (the standard presentation mode should be for smart phone). SHAJ publishes only guidelines based on proper and rigid evaluation of scientific evidence and with clear information on conflicts of interests.
Perspectives
SHAJ will also welcome to publish reports and narratives (up to 4000 words) from programmes and activities of high public health relevance which may not fulfill the formal criteria for the above categories.
Debates
SHAJ will publish Debate articles (up to 2000 words) with an aim to create a platform for critical reflection about ongoing global/public health issues and policies of relevance for Somalia and other fragile states.
Copyright Notice
This is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles featured in the journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with definition of open access as formulated by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI). All authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the SHAJ the right of first publication. The work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows others to share and distribute the work as long as it is attributed to the author and its initial publication in the SHAJ is acknowledged.
- Authors are encouraged to distribute the work themselves with information on its initial publication in the SHAJ, e.g. upload it to open repositories linked to their personal website or institutional affiliation, or publish it in a book.
The SHAJ is permitted non-exclusive distribution of the work, with attribution to the author, e.g. in a print book themed anthology.
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