Author Guidelines
Please read these requirements carefully before submitting your manuscript. Submissions that do not meet essential criteria may be returned for correction prior to peer review.
Compliance and Standards Metadata Consistency Peer-Review Readiness
Download Journal Template
Use the template to ensure consistent formatting and metadata.
Submit via OJS
Submit manuscripts and complete all metadata fields.
Journal Homepage
Scope, editorial board, and current issues.
1. Aims and Scope
Aims
African Journal of Medicine, Surgery and Public Health Research aims to publish rigorous, peer-reviewed research that advances medicine, surgery, and public health through clinically relevant, methodologically sound, and ethically grounded scholarship across African and global contexts. The journal welcomes original contributions that strengthen evidence-based prevention, diagnosis, treatment, surgical practice, population health, and health system improvement.
Advance medical, surgical, and public health research through robust clinical, epidemiological, community-based, and applied healthcare inquiry.
Strengthen evidence-based medicine, surgery, and population health practice using valid methods, transparent analysis, and clinically or policy-relevant interpretation of findings.
Promote integration of clinical medicine, surgical sciences, and public health in prevention, diagnosis, treatment, patient safety, and healthcare delivery contexts.
Support high-quality and ethically grounded health research that contributes to clinical decision-making, surgical practice, public health policy, and real-world healthcare application.
Scope
The journal considers manuscripts across medicine, surgery, public health, and related health sciences, including clinical, hospital-based, community-based, epidemiological, and interdisciplinary studies that improve understanding of disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, surgical care, and population health outcomes. Submissions should clearly state the research problem, clinical, surgical, or public health relevance, methodological rigor, data quality, ethical compliance, analytical approach, and contribution to healthcare knowledge or practice.
- Medicine and patient care: internal medicine, family medicine, clinical specialties, diagnosis, disease management, outcomes research, and patient-centered care.
- Surgery and perioperative care: general and specialty surgery, operative and postoperative care, surgical outcomes, trauma management, patient safety, and quality improvement in surgical services.
- Public health and disease prevention: epidemiology, health promotion, preventive medicine, disease surveillance, screening, vaccination, and community health interventions.
- Clinical therapeutics and healthcare interventions: evidence-based treatment strategies, clinical management pathways, multidisciplinary care, rehabilitation, and effectiveness of healthcare interventions.
- Health systems, policy, and service research: healthcare delivery, access, workforce, policy-relevant health research, hospital and community systems, and quality improvement.
- Quantitative, clinical, epidemiological, and mixed-methods approaches: clinical trials, observational studies, cohort and cross-sectional research, implementation studies, and transparent reporting of methods and results.
- African and global health perspectives: research with contextual relevance to Africa while maintaining international scientific rigor, ethical integrity, and practical contribution to medicine, surgery, and public health.
Accepted article types: Original Research Articles; Clinical Medicine Studies; Surgical Research Articles; Public Health and Epidemiological Studies; Health Systems and Policy Research; Systematic Reviews; Scoping Reviews; Short Communications; Case-Based or Practice-Informed Reports; Critical Perspectives. The journal prioritizes manuscripts with strong medical, surgical, or public health relevance, rigorous methods, transparent reporting, ethical compliance, and a clearly articulated novelty and contribution.
2. Essential Submission Requirements
Originality and Exclusivity
- Original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere.
- Appropriate citation and quotation practices are required.
- The journal may screen submissions for similarity and editorial integrity.
Language and Length
- Manuscripts should be written in English, Arabic, or Prancis, typed in Garamond 12 pt, A4 size paper, 3 cm margins on all sides, 1.5 line spacing, and single-column format.
- Recommended length: 5,000–8,000 words (including references; excluding appendices where applicable).
- All submissions must include an English abstract. If the manuscript is not in English, an abstract in the manuscript language is strongly recommended.
File and Template
- Submit the manuscript in .DOCX using the journal template.
- Ensure all OJS metadata matches the manuscript (title, authors, affiliations, abstract, keywords, references).
- Figures/tables must be clear and referenced in the text.
Ethics and Transparency
- Disclose funding, conflicts of interest, and author contributions (where applicable).
- For human/animal research, include ethics approval and informed consent statements when required by your institution/discipline.
- Data availability statements are strongly encouraged (dataset, code, instruments, or a justified restriction).
3. Manuscript Structure and Content Standards
Use the journal template. The structure below reflects international reporting expectations and facilitates peer review.
Title
Concise and informative; reflects the core variables/phenomenon, population/context (when relevant), and study focus. Avoid uncommon abbreviations and excessive length.
Author(s) and Affiliation(s)
Provide full author names, institutional affiliations (institution, city, country), and active emails. Ensure full consistency between the manuscript and OJS metadata.
Abstract (English Required)
200–250 words (single paragraph; no indentation). Include: problem context, objective, methods (design, sample/participants, instruments, analysis), key results (with essential quantitative indicators where relevant), and implications/contribution. Do not include citations.
Keywords
Provide 5–6 keywords that support indexing and discovery. Prefer specific terms aligned with the study’s constructs; avoid overly general words. Use semicolons to separate keywords.
Introduction
- Clear problem statement and significance (discipline and context).
- Critical, up-to-date literature positioning with an explicit research gap.
- Novelty and contribution stated explicitly.
- Research objective(s) and, where relevant, research questions/hypotheses.
Methods
- Design and rationale (quantitative/qualitative/mixed; model/approach).
- Participants/sample, setting, inclusion criteria, and sampling strategy.
- Instruments/materials (validity/reliability or trustworthiness procedures).
- Data collection procedures, timeline, and ethical considerations.
- Data analysis techniques (software, statistical tests/coding steps, assumptions).
Results
Present findings clearly and systematically. Use tables/figures for key outputs (not duplicates). Report essential statistics (e.g., effect sizes/CI when applicable) and relevant qualitative evidence (themes with representative excerpts). Keep Results separate from Discussion.
Discussion
Interpret findings in relation to theory and prior studies. Clarify what is confirmed, extended, or challenged; explain plausible mechanisms; state theoretical/practical implications; and discuss limitations and boundary conditions transparently.
Conclusion
Provide a concise synthesis that directly answers the objectives. State contributions and actionable implications. Avoid repeating the abstract and avoid bullet points in the conclusion narrative.
References (APA 7)
- Minimum 20 references (more for literature reviews as needed).
- Prioritize recent, peer-reviewed journal sources (recommended: majority within the last 10 years, unless foundational works are essential).
- Use APA 7th edition consistently (in-text citations and reference list).
- Include DOI or stable links where available.
- Reference managers (e.g., Mendeley/Zotero/EndNote) are strongly recommended.
4. Research Integrity, Ethics, and Disclosures
Publication Ethics
Authors must adhere to accepted international publication ethics. Plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, duplicate submission, and inappropriate authorship practices are not acceptable.
Authorship and Contributions
List only contributors who meet authorship criteria. Clearly define author roles (e.g., conceptualization, data collection, analysis, drafting, revision) where appropriate.
Conflicts of Interest and Funding
Disclose any financial or non-financial competing interests and all funding sources. If none, state explicitly: “The authors declare no competing interests” and/or “No external funding was received.”
Data, Materials, and Reproducibility
Provide a data availability statement. When feasible, share datasets, instruments, and code via trusted repositories. If restricted (privacy, legal, confidentiality), explain the limitation and provide access conditions where possible.
If your study involves human participants, ensure that consent procedures and institutional ethics approval (where applicable) are documented in the Methods section. Remove personal identifiers unless explicit permission is obtained.
5. Pre-Submission Checklist
Before submitting, ensure the following:
Technical Compliance
- Template applied consistently (headings, citations, tables, references).
- Tables/figures are legible, titled, and referenced in the text.
- All citations appear in the reference list and vice versa.
Editorial Readiness
- Clear novelty/contribution statement in the Introduction and Discussion.
- Methods are sufficiently detailed for replication or audit.
- Limitations and implications are explicit and proportionate to evidence.
OJS Metadata Quality
- Title, abstract, keywords, and author affiliations are complete and accurate.
- Author names and emails match the manuscript exactly.
- References are entered carefully if required by the workflow.
Submission Declarations
- Not published and not submitted elsewhere.
- Ethics and consent statements included where applicable.
- Funding and conflicts of interest declared (or explicitly stated as none).
Submission Portal
Submit manuscripts through the online system and complete all required fields:
Completing the checklist and rubric below prior to submission substantially improves editorial efficiency and reduces avoidable revision cycles.
6. Pre-Evaluation Rubric
Use this rubric as a self-check before submission. Higher compliance reduces desk-revision risk and strengthens peer-review readiness.
Mobile note: scroll horizontally inside the rubric table area to view all columns.
To avoid delays, ensure your manuscript meets the essential requirements, uses the template, and has complete OJS metadata. Submissions with incomplete metadata or unclear methodology may be returned for correction prior to peer review.