Ethical/Legal Considerations

A submitted manuscript must be an original contribution not previously published (except as an abstract or a preliminary report), must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted, must not be published elsewhere, in full or in part, in any language, without the consent of the Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health. 

The final version of the article published in DMP is considered the Version of Record (VoR). Each person listed as an author is expected to have participated in the study to a significant extent. Authorship, and order of authors, should be agreed upon prior to initial submission. Additions or deletions to lists of authors during the peer review process or after acceptance will need to be approved by the Journal Editorial office, and a Change of Authorship Form completed by ALL authors. Only an author can request to have his or her name removed from a manuscript once submitted. Although the editors and referees make every effort to ensure the validity of published manuscripts, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the journal, its editors, or the publisher. All manuscripts must be submitted online through the journal's ScholarOne peer review system. 

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Institutional or Ethics Review Board

All manuscripts with patient subjects require submission to an IRB to receive IRB approval or to receive IRB exemption. The details of this approval are to be included at the end of the Methodology Section, this should include any file number of the request and approval, the exact name of the IRB committee and other information that is retrievable upon request by the editors. A statement that “the hospital IRB approved the study” or similar will be returned to the authors for further details. 

The specific law or regulation from the country of the study that the author(s) believes precludes submission to an institutional review board for ethical approval is required for the editors to determine the validity of the decision that the study is exempt and does not require submission.

The most prudent approach is to submit the study to the appropriate institutional review board for exemption and then include this file number in the ethical approval discussion in the manuscript.

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Patient or study subject anonymity and Informed Consent

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that a patient's or study participants' anonymity be carefully protected and to verify that any experimental investigation with human subjects reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent and following all of the ethical guidelines for experimental investigation with human subjects required by the institution(s) with which all of the authors are affiliated.

Consent is a process where each subject understands their role in the study.

Author(s) are required to discuss the consent process: that anonymity and confidentiality of patients and study subjects were assured; that the data was secure; and that study subjects were aware that their participation was voluntary and they could withdraw from the study at any time without penalty or fear of retribution. This consent process should be acknowledged by study subjects in writing or via computer. The consent process should be available for the editors to review as part of the manuscript.

Authors should mask patients' eyes and remove patients' names from figures unless they obtain written consent from the patients and submit written consent with the manuscript. 

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Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors must confirm that the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration, as revised in 2004. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors must confirm that institutional and national guides for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

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Compliance with NIH and Other Research Funding Agency Accessibility Requirements

A number of research funding agencies now require or request authors to submit the postprint (the article after peer review and acceptance but not the final published article) to a repository that is accessible online by all without charge. Cambridge University Press, on behalf of the journal, is in full compliance with all accessibility requirements.

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Permissions

Authors must submit written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use direct quotations, tables, or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted form elsewhere, along with complete details about the source. Any permissions fees that might be required by the copyright owner are the responsibility of the authors requesting use of the borrowed material, not the responsibility of Cambridge University Press, or the Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, who hold copyright to the Journal.

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General Information for Manuscript Submissions 

Title Page

Include all identifying author information on a Title Page

Include on the title page (a) complete manuscript title; (b) authors' full names, highest academic degrees, and affiliations; (c) name and address for correspondence, including fax number, telephone number, and e-mail address; (d) any footnotes to these items; (e) a short running title not exceeding 45 letters and spaces; (f) sources of support that require acknowledgment; and (g) word count of the main text, not including abstract and references; (h) a list defining each author's contribution to the manuscript.

The Title Page should be the first page of the manuscript and should not be separate from the main body of the manuscript.

List all Abbreviations

For a list of standard abbreviations, consult the Council of Biology Editors Style Guide (available from the Council of Science Editors, Drohan Management Group, 12100 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 130, Reston, VA 20190) or other standard sources. Write out the full term for each abbreviation at its first use unless it is a standard unit of measure; include the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses after the first mention such as the National Instant Check System (NCIS). Please provide a list of all abbreviations used in the manuscript after the abstract of the Manuscript Text File.

Alphabetized:

ATLS: Advanced Trauma Life Support 

MCI: Mass Casualty Incident 

NCIS: National Instant Check System

SALT: Sort, Assess, Life-saving Intervention, Treatment and/or Transport

Structured Abstract

This should be included at the start of the Manuscript Text File.

Original Research, Brief Reports and Systematic Literature or Scoping Reviews

Organize the abstract in a structured format with the headings: Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Abstracts should not be structured for other types of articles. This should be included at the start of the Manuscript Text File.

Limit the abstract to 200 words. It must be factual and comprehensive. Limit the use of abbreviations and acronyms, and avoid general statements (e.g., the significance of the results is discussed).

Narrative Abstract

This should be included at the start of the Manuscript Text File.

Concepts, Reports from the Field and Policy Analysis

Limit the abstract to 150 words. It must be factual and comprehensive. Limit the use of abbreviations and acronyms, and avoid general statements (e.g., the significance of the results is discussed). Abstracts should not be structured for other types of articles.

AN ABSTRACT IS NOT REQUIRED FOR A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Graphical Abstract

Submission of graphical abstracts is optional for all article types except letters. We encourage all authors to consider including a graphical abstract of their paper.

A Graphical Abstract is a single image that summarises the main findings of a paper, allowing readers to gain quickly an overview and understanding of your work. Well-designed and prepared graphical abstracts are an important way to publicise your research, attracting readers, and helping to disseminate your work to a wider audience. Ideally, the graphical abstract should be created independently of the figures already in the paper but it could include a (simplified version of) an existing figure. Graphical abstracts are displayed at article level, and on the article landing page online.

If your paper is accepted, your graphical abstract can be submitted along with your final files. You should use the ‘Graphical Abstract’ file designation on ScholarOne. Graphical abstracts should be clear and easy for the viewer to read, and should illustrate one main point only. Permission to reuse images should be sought by the authors before submitting a graphical abstract.

We recommend that only TIFF, EPS or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. Other non-preferred but usable formats are JPG, PPT and GIF files and images created in Microsoft Word. For further information about how to prepare your figures, including sizing and resolution requirements, please see our artwork guide. The image will be scaled to fit the appropriate space on Cambridge Core, so please ensure that any font used is clear to read, and that any text is included as part of the image file (although text should ideally be kept to a minimum). There is also no need to include the title ‘Graphical Abstract’ in your image.

Keywords

Include in Manuscript Text File List 3-5 keywords or phrases for indexing following the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus.

Other Acknowledgements

If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country).

Use ® for registered trademark, © for copyright and ™ for trademark appropriately.

Acknowledge all forms of support, including pharmaceutical and industry support, in an Acknowledgment paragraph. This should follow the abbreviations on a separate page.

Manuscript Text

For Original Research, Brief Report, Systematic Literature Review and Concepts if appropriate: Organize the manuscript into 6 main headings: Introduction, Methods, Results, Limitations, Discussion, and Conclusions.

For Concepts if appropriate, Reports from the Field, Policy Analysis, Letters to the Editor: Organize the manuscript into 3 main headings: Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusions. 

Please do not write in the first person as this point of view is often used in personal narrative - when the writer is telling a story or relating an experience. This perspective is the writer's point of view, and the writer becomes the focal point. First person personal pronouns include I, we, me, us, my, mine, our, and ours (https://writingcommons.org/section/rhetoric/rhetorical-stance/point-of-view/avoid-first-person-point-of-view/). Please consider writing "this study" instead. 

Please do not write "he/she", instead write "they".

References

The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. A reference must be easily retrieved or available, in English and specifically pertain to the text assigned to the citation. Key the references (single-spaced) at the end of the manuscript. Cite the references in the text in the order of appearance. Use superscript numerals for text citations for example Jenkins¹ surveyed first responders in Philadelphia for their awareness of health literacy issues.¹

Reference are to follow the AMA reference style and please be sure to set this when using a reference management software program (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.)

Cite unpublished data—such as papers submitted but not yet accepted for publication and personal communications, including e-mail communications—in parentheses in the text. If there are more than 3 authors, name only the first 3 authors and then use et al. Refer to the 

List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus for abbreviations of journal names.

For internet sources—whether websites, online journals, other journal articles accessed online, online newsletters, or other web materials—be sure to include the ''date accessed'' information as shown below under the ''World Wide Web'' example. Also, the National Library of Medicine recommends that authors retain a hard copy of the information accessed online for their own reference or in case of questions that may arise later.

Figures

Please upload figures as separate documents from the manuscript. Due to space limitations, there is a limit of 4 figures per article. Digital art should be created/scanned and saved and submitted as a TIFF (tagged image file format), an EPS (encapsulated postscript) file, or a PPT (PowerPoint) file. Electronic photographs—radiographs, CT scans, and so on—and scanned images must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). Line art must have a resolution of at least 1200 dpi. If fonts are used in the artwork, they must be converted to paths or outlines or they must be embedded in the files. Color images must be created/scanned and saved and submitted as CMYK files. If you do not have the capability to create CMYK files, please disregard this step. Indicate in your cover letter that you are unable to produce CMYK files. Cite figures consecutively in the text, and number them in the order in which they are discussed.

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Cover photographs

The journal seeks photographs that capture the essence of what the disaster medicine community does—prepare for and respond to catastrophic events. Selected photos, such as the Astrodome photo featured on the Journal's premiere issue, will appear on the Journal's cover. Before submitting photos, read these guidelines:

• Photos must be previously unpublished. Preference will be given to photos taken on-site by a health services provider responding to an event. Other images relating to disaster medicine will be considered, however.
• Photos should be submitted in an electronic file at 300 dpi resolution; either color or black and white is acceptable.
• All photos submitted require written permission/ acknowledgment (model release) from photo subjects to allow use of their images by DMPHP editorial and promotions.
• All submissions will be reviewed by the editors. Photos accepted by the editors will be featured on future covers of DMPHP.

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Tables and Online Data Supplements

Tables

Please upload tables as separate documents from the manuscript. Due to space limitations, there is a limit of 4 tables per article, but see also the section below on Online Data Supplements. Create tables using the table creating and editing feature of the word processing software (ie, Microsoft Word). Do not use Excel or comparable spreadsheet programs. Cite tables consecutively in the text, and number them in that order. Key each on a separate sheet, and include the table title, appropriate column heads, and explanatory legends (including definitions of any abbreviations used). Tables should be self-explanatory and should supplement, rather than duplicate, the material in the text. Do not embed tables within the body of the manuscript.

Online Data Supplements

Online Data Supplements are encouraged as an enhancement to the Methods section. This optional section provides an opportunity to present supporting materials to the manuscript. Please note that all data supplements undergo peer review and must be submitted with the original manuscript at initial submission. Online Data Supplements can consist of the following:

• Expanded methods and results
• Additional figures
• Additional tables
• Video files

If citations are made in an Online Data Supplement, the supplement must contain its own reference section, with references numbered sequentially beginning with the number 1. File size should be 10MB or less.

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Style

• Pattern manuscript style after the American Medical Association Manual of Style (11th edition). 
• Stedman's Medical Dictionary (28th edition) and Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) should be used as standard references.
• Refer to drugs and therapeutic agents by their accepted generic or chemical names, and do not abbreviate them. 
• Use code numbers only when a generic name is not yet available. In that case, supply the chemical name and a figure giving the chemical structure of the drug. 
• Capitalize the trade names of drugs and place them in parentheses after the generic names. To comply with trademark law, include the name and (city and state in USA; city and country outside USA) of the manufacturer of any drug, supply, or equipment mentioned in the manuscript. 
• Use the metric system to express units of measure and degrees Celsius to express temperatures, and use SI units rather than conventional units.