Submissions

Author Guidelines

Types of articles for publication

Revista Alerta offers authors/researchers, the opportunity of publishing different type of scientific articles. Following, are detailed instruction about the manuscripts acceptable for reviewing. It is highly advised to read the instructions with great attention before the article is submitted. https://alerta.salud.gob.sv/instrucciones-a-los-autores/

Original Articles

It refers to research works which have not been published or offered for reviewing to other scientific journals. They should present information that contributes to the understanding or to solving the most important health problems. Case studies are accepted as well as descriptive, analytic cross-sectional studies, case and control studies, cohort studies, randomized controlled assays. The results must be authentic and original.   

The article should present the following structure: abstract, key words, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion and bibliographic references. The text should be no more than 4000 words, not including bibliographic references, abstract and the descriptive text for tables and illustrations. The abstract should be no more than 250 words, and should be structured as introduction, objective, methodology, results and conclusion. 35 bibliographic references are allowed as maximum and 25 as minimum limit. 

Suggested format for observational studies: STROBE guidelines

Suggested format for randomized controlled assays: CONSORT declaration.

Articles for review 

These are articles that present the results of analysis of recent information, or a thematic actualization of public health interest, following the methodologies accepted for this purpose. It is required to indicate if it is a narrative or systematic review.    

Systematic review and meta-analysis: Systematic reviews will be accepted when presenting synthesis of evidence of original studies, quantitative or qualitative, with a rigorous process to minimize the bias and to identify, evaluate and synthetize studies to provide answers to a specific clinical question. The process of identification of original studies must be thoroughly described, as well as the applied criteria to those that were selected for the reviewing, and the processes used for synthetizing the obtained results.  

The articles should present the following structure: abstract, key words, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions and bibliographic references. The text must be a maximum of 4000 words, not including bibliographic references, abstract and the descriptive text for tables and illustrations. Abstract must contain 250 words and must be structure as: introduction, objective, methodology, results and conclusions. There are not limited number of bibliographic references, being the 75% of these, not older than 5 years. Grey literature is not permitted as part of the bibliographic reference. Tables and figures should be no more than five. 

Suggested format: PRISMA guidelines

Narrative or critical reviews: should present a descriptive and comprehensive discussion of a topic of scientific interest in the field of public health. A clear, interesting, scientific objective with a logical argumentation should be formulated.

The article must present the following structure: abstract, key words, introduction thematic discussion, conclusions and bibliographic references. The text must be a maximum of 3000 words, not including bibliographic references, abstract and the descriptive text for tables and illustrations. Abstract must contain 200 words. No more than 50 bibliographic references will be allowed, being the 70% of these, not older than 5 years. Only 15% of bibliographic Grey literature is permitted as part of the bibliographic reference. Tables and figures should be no more than three.   

Brief Communication

This type of scientific work is shorter than an original article. The objective is related to publishing data of interest in a given situation of public health. It reports information of an ongoing investigation, innovative methodologies or techniques, among others.

The work should present the following structure: abstract, key words, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions and bibliographic references. The text must be a maximum of 2000 words, not including bibliographic references, abstract and the descriptive text for tables and illustrations. Abstract must contain 200 words, and should be structure as: introduction, objective, methodology, results and conclusions. No more than 20 and no less than 15 bibliographic references will be allowed, being the 65% of these, not older than 5 years. Only 5% of bibliographic Grey literature is permitted as part of the bibliographic reference. Tables and figures should be no more than three.  

Case report

This type of texts present clinical files observing previously established criteria; the diagnosis and treatments should convey a considerable contribution to the scientific knowledge of the related thematic issues. They should abide by the agreements of the Helsinki declaration and the instructions of the international ethics for research involving human health issues. 

The text should present the following structure: abstract, key words, introduction, case presentation, therapeutic intervention, clinical evolution, clinical diagnosis, discussion, ethics aspects and bibliographic references. The text must be a maximum of 2000 words, not including bibliographic references, abstract and the descriptive text for tables and illustrations. Abstract must contain 200 words, and should be structured as: case presentation, therapeutic intervention and clinical evolution. No more than 20 and no less than 15 bibliographic references will be allowed, being the 70% of these, not older than 5 years. Only 5% of Grey literature is permitted as part of the bibliographic reference. Tables and illustrations should be no more than three.  

Suggested format: CARE guidelines

Letter to the editor

It is about correspondence addressed to the Editor or to the Editorial Committee, to clarify, discuss or comment over content presented in previous journal issues. These type of letters may also be accepted.

The letters should present the following content: title and purpose of the correspondence. The letter should content no more than 1000 words. Tables and illustrations are not allowed, and no more than five bibliographic references will be accepted.  

Editorial

The editorial text transmits the opinion about a specific matter related to a relevant aspect of public health within the journal, substantiated by the available scientific literature. The Editor in Chief or the Editorial Committee, can assign the editorial piece to a singled researcher; nevertheless, researchers can present the petition and submit their editorial proposals for technical and scientific review.   

The editorial text must have a title, the thematic discussion and bibliographic references. It should content no more than 1000 words; tables and illustrations are not allowed. No more than 10 and no less than 5 bibliographic references will be allowed, being the 80% of these, not older than 5 years. Only 10% of Grey literature is permitted as part of the bibliographic references.

Summary of the characteristics of the different types of articles

General requisites

In order to be reviewed by the editorial committee for its publication, the submitted document should present the following characteristics:

File Format

The file format has to be written in an editable text processor such as .doc, .docx, .odt.

Page

The page size is letter (21.59 cm x 27.94 cm).

Title

The title should not exceed 15 words. Acronyms and abbreviations are not permitted.

Key Words

No more than five, and no less than three key words are permitted. These key words should be taken from the Health Science Descriptors (DeCS),  http://decs.bvs.br/E/homepagee.htm  or the Medical Subjects Headings, from the United States National Medical Library (MeSH) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh.

Researchers/Authors

The name of the researches/authors should be written in the same order as they will be in the publishing material. Each one must have his/her credentials: Contact e-Mail, associated institution, city, country, and ORCID code (Open Researcher and Contributor ID).

Correspondence

The name of the contact author, must be detailed as well as the address, telephone number (land line and mobile), and e-Mail. 

Acknowledgements

The persons to be acknowledged should be previously contacted and should consent to their name being published. This is not necessary when institutions and entities are mentioned. These information is solely responsibility of the authors. 

Financing conditions and conflict of interest

All financial support the researchers have received, must be documented, as well as agreements, contracts, and all possible conflicts of interest that may arise in pursuing the investigation due to financial or other kind of support and conditions caused by institutional, familiar or personal interest. Per diem, material goods, previous jobs of the researchers must be included.

Presentation page

Each manuscript should contain a presentation page which must include:

• Title in Spanish.
• Title in English.
• Researchers/Authors and credentials.
• Information for correspondence.
• Paragraph detailing each author and his/her status and contribution to the research.
• Funding information.
• Conflict of interest.
• Acknowledgements.

Bibliographic references

The reference format should be formulated following the Vancouver norms (http://werken.ubiobio.cl/html/downloads/Vancouver/Bookshelf_NBK7256.pdf). Abstracts, personal communications, posters, non-official presentations and observations which have not been published, are not accepted. Articles that have been accepted in process for publication could be cited, with the following remarks in parenthesis “for publishing.” The DOI of each bibliographic reference should be verified in Crossref. In the case that the DOI does not exist, an electronic address should be in place where the article can be found. 

The citations are indicated in supra index in Arabic numbers, by the side of the word that close the idea or reference phrase, with no space between them.

Tables

Tables should be submitted in an attached file, numbered in consecutive order in regard to the citation in the text. Tables in image format are not accepted. In the case the source of the table is from another publication, the written permit should be obtained from the copyrights’ owner.

Tables must be elaborated in Arial font, letter size 10, in single space. The cells should not contain blank spaces or empty. It should be filled with a dash sign when no data is available.

Figures

Figures are those graphic elements such as images, flow charts, pictures, graphics, maps, and illustrations that contain an image file extension. Images should be displayed in an attached file with a resolution no less than 300 dots per inch (dpi), consecutively numbered according to the citation order in the text. Figures must be written in Arial font. The title should be written out of the area of the image. In the case that the image is from a published source, the written permit must be obtained from the copyrights owner.    

Regarding maps, efforts should be made to include the scale and the Compass Rouse. Microscopic, radiographic, and other images must count with pointers indicating the areas that are being explained with their names and acronyms.   

Regarding direct images of patients, body parts or organs, whether when using technological equipment or pictures, the patients’ names should be concealed. The microscopic images, must count with the description of the applied techniques, magnifying objectives and equipment, with a scale to identify the real size of the objects.      

Numeric elements

Hundreds must be detached from the thousands by a hard or indivisible space (shift+control+espace), starting at the fifth digit. For instance: 1300, 11 300, 111 300, 1 11 300. Decimals should be separated by a dot. It is advisable to use only one decimal.

If figures with certain precision that imply more than three decimals are presented, these must be annotated using the scientific format, for instance: if it is 0.0004 should be written as 4x10-3. The probability values (p) should be written as <0.05 (lower than 0.05) or <0.01 (lower than 0.01) accordingly.

In case of values greater than or equal to 0.05, they should be written until 0.10. In case of values greater than or equal to 0.10, they should be written as _> 0.10. Values such as 0.00000001 must be avoided. In this case, it should be written as <0.01.

The equations must be included with the appropriate programs, committed to the original formulas and symbols. No images of formulas will be accepted.

Submission

Before the submission

The following documents must be prepared and named as separated files:

1. Manuscript: this document must contain the text of the work, starting from the main tittle to the bibliographic references. It should not contain tables or illustrations. It should include titles of the graphics and illustrations next to the clarifying notes. It must be submitted without the researchers’/authors’ information.
2. Presentation form: this document should contain the title in Spanish and English. Scientific name of all authors with their respective credentials and ORCID number, as well as the information regarding the correspondence author, contribution to the work of each author, and the list of all submitted documents.
3. Tables: this document should contain all the tables in editable format; each table should contain its title as it is mentioned in the “manuscript” document.
4. Figures: these could be a series of files named accordingly with the figure’s number, for instance: Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, etc.

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.

Lista de Verificación
Antes de enviar el artículo, asegúrese de que se incluyen todos los elementos necesarios:

Checklist

Before sending the article, make sure that all required elements are included:

• Title in Spanish and English

• Correspondence author, contact information and ORCID.
• Structured abstract in Spanish and English.
• Key words in Spanish and English.
• All figures correctly listed in the text and their titles.
• All tables correctly listed in the text with their titles and clarifying notes. 
• All references in order and written accordingly to the Vancouver Format.
• A detailed grammatical and orthographic revision of the text.
• All copyrights written permits should be in order, and cited correctly.  
• The declaration of conflict of interest must be included.
• Acknowledgements.
• Contribution of each author/researcher.

Submission of Documents  

The files should be submitted through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform in which the author must be registered.  

To be register as an author, proceed to enter to the following link:   https://www.lamjol.info/index.php/alerta/login  and click in the field “registration site.” Afterwards fill in the form and continue with the next steps indicated in the platform.

For the submission of the manuscript, click in the field “send a new document.” Following, select the language and type of manuscript file to be submitted (original article, case report, etc.). Follow the next required steps, until the sending process is done. Consultations about submission can be reviewed in the following link:  http://alerta.salud.gob.sv/

Authors will receive an e-mail notification when the manuscripts have been received at Revista Alerta, and will be able to follow up the status of the manuscripts from their own accounts. The access to the OJS platform is through the following link: OJS Alerta.

Ethics and policy

Revista Alerta is property of the Instituto Nacional de Salud de El Salvador (INS) (El Salvador National Institute for Health), a dependency of the Ministry of Health of El Salvador. Its mission is to be an instrument of diffusion of scientific information on health issues, and to contribute to the evidence based decision making. Authors are solely responsible for the expressed opinions in their documents and not necessarily represent the opinion or policy of the Institution. 

Revista Alerta does not published commercial advertising, nor does it mention commercial names of equipment manufacturers; when mentioning medical supplies, specific companies, or certain products’ manufacturer, it does not imply an endorsement of them. 

Revista Alerta’s electronic ISSN is: 2617-5274. It adheres to the international ethics  norms and codes established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (Code of Conduct and Best Practices Guidelines for Journals Editors), COPE (https://publicationethics.org); and the Council of Science Editors (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org); Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), which can be found in: http://cioms.ch; and the  International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME),  http://www.icmje.org).

Authors should abide by the indications of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which are published in Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (Updated December 2019) http://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf.

Costs of access and publication

Revista Alerta does not charge any shipping and editorial processing fees for the submitted articles to be published. The full access to the articles’ text is free of charge.    
Open access

Revista Alerta adheres to the initiative of open Access of Budapest.

Frequency of publication

Revista Alerta publishes two issues per year, one in January and another one in July. Nevertheless, manuscripts are accepted all year round.

Anticipated publication

Revista Alerta publishes in anticipation when a manuscript has cleared the peer-reviewed observations before the publication date. A DOI will be assigned to each anticipated published article, and the text <<Anticipated publication>> will be written until its final publication in the corresponding issue.

Peer review

Revista Alerta uses a double blind peer review system.

Language

Revista Alerta is published in Spanish. Albeit, authors are required to send an English version of the title, abstract, and key words. 

Ethical aspects

All submitted manuscripts, should count with the ethics approval of the country where the research has been done. In the case of researches undertaken in El Salvador, they should count with the approval from the ethic committee of the Consejo Superior de Salud Pública (Superior Council of Public Health) or from a local committee. Within the methodology section, all ethics aspects of each research work should be declared. In the studies of clinical cases, these aspects have a special section. This requirement is not necessary for the articles for review. Revista Alerta could request the evidence of informed consent of the participants in a given study when pertinent.  

Clinical assays registration

Revista Alerta supports the policies of clinical assays registration of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Therefore, only those clinical assays which count with an identification number in one of these registration sites, validated by its criteria, will be accepted. The number and name of the registration site should be included in the presentation page. 

Authorship rights

Revista Aleta gives to authors the sole control of their work and the right to be acknowledged and cited.

Privacy declaration

The authors’ personal data are of exclusive use of the journal and will not be to disposition of a third party.

Authorship of the manuscript

All participating authors, should have done substantial contributions in the following aspects: (1) conceptual and study design, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation; (2) the drafts of the article or the critical review of the intellectual content; (3) the final approval of the document that is submitted; (4) also each one has to be in the disposition to be accountable for all aspects of the research.

Plagiarism and coincidence

Revista Alerta, verifies the submitted manuscripts through different tools and do not accept those which present more than 5% of coincidence with other texts. The appropriation of other person’s language, ideas or thoughts is not allowed if the source is not credited. Plagiarism is: duplicated, redundant, double or overlapping presentations; translated articles published previously, including the auto-plagiarism of a total or some part of a previous published work. (e.g. text, data and images), without mentioning the previous diffusion.    

Forgery of information

Those manuscripts which were elaborated from misleading data or information will not be published. Omission of data, intentional deletion, or distortion of data must be avoided at all costs.  

Correction and retraction policies

The Editorial Committee, assumes the responsibility of the integrity of the published documents. Corrections notified to the journal will be made properly; at the end of the correction, a note will be added explaining the changes regarding the original publication and an errata faith must be published.

The journal will consider a retraction in cases of unreliable findings, data evidence, plagiarism and un-ethical research. These will be published in a retraction note replacing the original text. The digital file (PDF) will be replaced with a version containing a watermark <<Retracted>>, and the motivation for it. Nevertheless, the original text will continue to be available.

Complaints and appeals

Any complaint regarding wrong doings, appeals or claims, should be directed to the Editorial Committee to the e-mail: ralerta@salud.gob.sv     

Guidelines for new authors

Following, are basic aspects for the formulation of  scientific articles:

Introduction

This section depicts the problem to be addressed, starting from general to specific issues (current situation), and the importance of the investigation (reasons for doing it); it also includes the pertinent and necessary bibliographic references. It ends with the description of the main objective of the study. Data to be presented in the study should not be included.

The section is written in present tense and the first person treatment should be avoided. Abbreviations are used after three times of the first mention, and the acronym must be defined after the first use. The length of this section is between 300 and 350 words.

Methodology

This section explains how the study was conducted, the selection of the participating subjects, the applied technics, description of data collection instruments, equipment used and data management, informatics programs and statistical programs applied. Charts and graphics may be used, to facilitate to the reader the understanding of the information. In this section, ethical issues must be clearly detailed accordingly to the type of investigation. The written informed consent of participants when the study includes humans must be incorporated; in case of clinical assays, the corresponding registration should be added.   

Results

The results relate to the relevant findings of the study, without commenting them. This section is written in past tense. Tables or images must be used when these portray the obtained results in a better way than the text. The selected images or tables should not redound with the results presented.  

Discussion

It is advisable to start with a brief description of the main findings in comparison to other studies. This section should not be limited to a comparison of results with similar studies, but it may contain an explanation based on scientific studies that can contribute to the understanding of the findings. The described results should not be repeated.  Limitations and recommendations should be described in this section.

Conclusions

The main conclusion of the work should be written first, given that it is the one that respond to the research objective. Conclusions should be based on the study observations. They should be sustained by the investigation results and must be coherent with the study’s objective.