Guidelines for Authors

The Geospatial Health publishes the following article types:

  • Original Articles
  • Reviews
  • vHealth communications

Overview

Manuscript will be carefully scrutinized for evidence of plagiarism, duplication and data manipulation; in particular, images will be carefully examined for any indication of intentional improper modification.

Any suspected misconduct ends up with a quick rejection and is then reported to the US Office of Research Integrity.

Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically by using the Geospatial Health online submission and review website (https://www.geospatialhealth.net/site/about/submissions). The Publisher and Editor regret that they are not able to consider submissions that do not follow this procedure.

Ensure that the following items are present
One author (multiple corresponding authors are not allowed) has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

  • E-mail address
  • Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded

  • Manuscript file
  • Include keywords (no more than seven)
  • All figures (include relevant captions)
  • All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
  • Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided

 Further considerations

  • Please prepare your manuscript for the blind peer review;
  • Ensure that all references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
  • Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
  • A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
  • Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
  • Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements
  • Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'. Ensure that your work is written in correct English before submission. Note that language-focused copyediting is the responsibility of the authors prior to submission. Professional copyediting can help authors improve the presentation of their work and increase its chances of being taken on by a publisher. In case you feel that your manuscript would benefit from a professional English language copyediting checking language grammar and style, you can find a reliable revision service at:

Desk reject criteria
The editorial team of the Geospatial Health applies desk review to filter out papers that will not be processed; these are papers that are not aligned with the aims and scope of the journal, or which lack essential information in one or more sections of the paper or has not been submitted as per the correct procedure. In such cases, the paper will be desk rejected: this means that it will be sent back to the submitting author, and will not be reviewed.

 

Authors are kindly invited to suggest potential reviewers (names, affiliations and email addresses) for their manuscript, if they wish.

 

Manuscript preparation

Preparation of manuscripts

  • Manuscripts should be written in English and submitted in MS Word Format (no PDF).
  • Manuscripts should have numbered lines, with wide margins and double spacing throughout. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, should be numbered.
  • Manuscripts should be organized in the following order:
    • Title
    • Name(s) of author(s)
    • Complete postal address(es) of affiliations
    • Full telephone, Fax No. and e-mail address of the corresponding author
    • Abstract (not longer than 250 words)
    • Keywords (3-5)
    • Introduction
    • Materials and methods (with subheadings if necessary)
    • Results (with subheadings if necessary)
    • Discussion
    • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Titles of tables and figures
  • Tables (must be pasted into the same file)
  • Figures  (must be pasted into the same file) - the number of figures should be reasonable and justified: no more than 20% of the article (exceeding figures, if needed, will be published in an Appendix file). Figures with different panels have to be grouped into a plate, and panels marked with letters

Tables and Figures

If tables are used, they should be double-spaced on separate pages of the manuscript, not embedded throughout the text. They should be numbered and cited in the text. Tables should be provided as editable Word files, and authors should ensure that they are presented in a publication-ready format. Considering how a table fits on a page in a wordprocessing program can often provide insight into how it will appear on a journal page.

Larger or more complex tables will be made available online as supplementary material at the Editorial Office's sole discretion, including ensuring efficient readability of the paper publishing format.

If figures are used, they should be numbered and cited in the text and inserted at the end of the manuscript. Figures should be designed using a well-known software package. Please note that the Production Office will not redraw or re-letter any image.

A different caption for each figure must be provided at the end of the manuscript. Figures with different panels have to be grouped into a plate, and panels marked with letters.

In case of acceptance, authors are required to provide the figures as .tiff or .jpg files, with the following digital resolution:

  1. Color (saved as CMYK): 300 dpi - maximum width 17 cm - minimum width 8.5 cm
  2. Black and white/grays: 600 dpi - maximum width 17 cm - minimum width 8.5 cm

 

Journal Sections

Original Articles: They should be divided into an Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and References. A maximum of 10 authors is permitted and additional authors should be listed in an ad hoc Appendix.

Reviews:  They should be introduced by a general summary of content in the form of an Abstract. Following a short introduction, putting the study into context and defining the aim, reviews will concentrate on the most recent developments in the field. A review should clearly describe the search strategy followed (key words, inclusion, exclusion criteria, search engines,...). No particular format is required; headings should be used to designate the major divisions of the paper.

vHealth communications:  The visual approach of vHealth communications does not aspire to replace normal-length articles, but aims at facilitating communication to the wider set of stakeholders involved in research today, i.e. government offices, decision-makers, funding agencies, diseases programme managers as well as the very people who live and work in endemic areas. To make visualization an integral part of the scientific communication, the journal welcomes the combination of a short manuscript and a complementing video clip, which form together a vHealth communication. The video clip is at the core of a vHealth communication, presenting objectives, concepts, methodologies and spatial associations in a manner that is entertaining and easily understandable, yet coherent and scientifically sound. In accordance with the focus of the journal, vHealth communications need to show application of geographical information systems, remote sensing, global positioning systems, spatial statistics or other geospatial tools in the context of human and veterinary health.

How to prepare a vHealth communication
The manuscript of a vHealth communication needs to follow the instructions as provided by the journal's Guidelines for Authors, with the following exceptions and additions:

Manuscript

  • Abstract not exceeding 100 words (visualisation needs to be mentioned somewhere in the abstract)
  • 3-5 keywords
  • Background of the visualisation (maximum 1,400 words), introducing the topic, the methodology of the research presented), some key findings of the research and the motivation behind the vHealth communication
  • One figure or table
  • One box summarizing the overall aim/motivation of the vHealth communication (50-100 words)
  • One box describing the software used for producing the video clip (100-150 words). The objective of this box is to encourage other researchers to produce video clips for disseminating their research findings to a wider audience
  • No more than 12 references

Video clip

  • The video clip should be entertaining and easily understandable, yet coherent and scientifically sound
  • The video should have a clear structure/story line (e.g. introduction, methodology, visualized findings, outlook)
  • Duration of the video clip: maximum 10 minutes
  • Video clip must be in good quality (picture and sound)

An Internet link to the video clip has to be provided when submitting a vHealth communication. It is the responsibility of the authors that no copyrights are violated in the final video clip, which will be published on YouTube by the journal.

References

  • References cited in the text should be presented in a list in the section References
  • In the text refer to the author's name (without initial) and year of publication.
  • If reference is made in the text to a publication written by more than two authors the name of the first author should be used followed by "et al.". This indication, however, should never be used in the list of references. In this list names of first author and co-authors should be mentioned.
  • References cited together in the text should be arranged chronologically.
  • The references should be listed in alphabetical order and they should contain: surname and initials of each author, year of publication, title of the paper, abbreviated name and volume of the journal (for books, title and publisher), first and last page of the paper.
  • For example:

    for journals

    Cringoli G, Taddei R, Rinaldi L, Veneziano V, Musella V, Cascone C, Sibilio G, Malone JB, 2004. Use of remote sensing and geographical information systems to identify environmental features that influence the distribution of paramphistomosis in sheep from the southern Italian Apennines. Vet Parasitol 122:15-26.

    for books

    Elliott P, Wakefield J, Best N, Briggs D, 2000. Spatial Epidemiology - Methods and Applications, Oxford University Press, 494 pp.

 

Permissions

In case extracts (text/figures/tables) from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright holder(s) and credit the source(s) in the article, for example: 'Adapted from Cringoli et al., Vet Parasitol 2004;122:15-26; with permission.' The Editorial Office of Geospatial Health needs to receive a copy of the written permission before proceeding with publication. Please download here the 'License and Disclaimer' agreement.

 

Authorship and Contributorship

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship according to the ICMJE criteria. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should only be based on substantial contributions to: i) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data, and to ii) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and on iii) final approval of the version to be published; and iv) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Authors should provide a brief description of their individual contributions. Those who do not meet all four criteria should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading. Authors can find detailed information on the Publisher's website.

Authors must disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the creation of submitted work. Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be held accountable for the work's accuracy, integrity, and originality, all of which are required for authorship. Because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that is incorrect, incomplete, or biased, authors should carefully review and edit the result. Authors should be able to assert that their paper contains no plagiarism, including text and images generated by AI.

Changes in Authorship
Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor:  Authors are requested to sign and send to the Editors a statement of agreement for the requested change from all listed authors and from the author(s) to be removed or added.
Please note that if your manuscript is accepted you will not be able to make any changes to the authors, or order of authors, of your manuscript once the editor has accepted your manuscript for publication.