Table of Contents

Volume 15 Issue 3 (2023) – In Production
Volume 15 Issue 2 (2023) – In Production
Volume 15 Issue 1 (2023) – In Production
Volume 14 Issue 4 (2022)
Volume 14 Issue 3 (2022)
Volume 14 Issue 2 (2022)
Volume 14 Issue 1 (2022)
Volume 13 Issue 4 (2021)
Volume 13 Issue 3 (2021)
Volume 13 Issue 2 (2021)
Volume 13 Issue 1 (2021)
Volume 12 Issue 4 (2020)
Volume 12 Issue 3 (2020)
Volume 12 Issue 2 (2020)
Volume 12 Issue 1 (2020)
Volume 11 Issue 4 (2019)
Volume 11 Issue 3 (2019)
Volume 11 Issue 2 (2019)
Volume 11 Issue 1 (2019)
Volume 10 Issue 4 (2018)
Volume 10 Issue 3 (2018)
Volume 10 Issue 2 (2018)
Volume 10 Issue 1 (2018)
Volume 9 Issue 4 (2017)
Volume 9 Issue 3 (2017)
Volume 9 Issue 2 (2017)
Volume 9 Issue 1 (2017)
Volume 8 Issue 4 (2016)
Volume 8 Issue 3 (2016)
Volume 8 Issue 2 (2016)
Volume 8 Issue 1 (2016)
Volume 7 Issue 4 (2015)
Volume 7 Issue 3 (2015)
Volume 7 Issue 2 (2015)
Volume 7 Issue 1 (2015)
Volume 6 Issue 4 (2014)
Volume 6 Issue 3 (2014)
Volume 6 Issue 2 (2014)
Volume 6 Issue 1 (2014)
Volume 5 Issue 4 (2013)
Volume 5 Issue 3 (2013)
Volume 5 Issue 2 (2013)
Volume 5 Issue 1 (2013)
Volume 4 Issue 4 (2012)
Volume 4 Issue 3 (2012)
Volume 4 Issue 2 (2012)
Volume 4 Issue 1 (2012)
Volume 3 Issue 4 (2011)
Volume 3 Issue 3 (2011)
Volume 3 Issue 2 (2011)
Volume 3 Issue 1 (2011)
Volume 2 Issue 4 (2010)
Volume 2 Issue 3 (2010)
Volume 2 Issue 2 (2010)
Volume 2 Issue 1 (2010)
Volume 1 Issue 4 (2009)
Volume 1 Issue 3 (2009)
Volume 1 Issue 2 (2009)
Volume 1 Issue 1 (2009)

Editor-in-Chief

Professor Joav Merrick, MD, MMedSci, DMSc
Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Israel;
Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatrics, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel,
Kentucky Children’s Hospital, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA;
Professor of Public Health, Center for Healthy Development, Center for Healthy Development, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
E-mail: jmerrick@zahav.net.il

Associate Editor

Mohammed Morad, MD, FRCP(Edinburgh), MRCPS(Glasgow), Professor, Clalit Health Services and Division of Community Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel. E-mail: Morad62@gmail.com

Editorial Board

Daniel Chemtob, MD, MPH, DEA, Director, Department of Tuberculosis and AIDS, Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel
Itamar Grotto, MD, MPH, PhD, Professor and Director, Public Health Services, Jerusalem, Israel
Morten Grønbæk, MD, PhD, DMSc, Professor, Centre for Alcohol Research and Director of Research, National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Joan Earle Hahn, PhD, RN/APRN, CGNP, CGCNS, CNL, CDDN, Advanced Practice Nurse Consultant, Aging and Disability, New Hampshire, USA
Bruce David Kirkcaldy, MA, PhD, FBPsS, Director, International Centre for the Study of Occupational and Mental Health, Düsseldorf, Germany
Lucie Laflamme, MSc, PhD, Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Division of International Health, Stockholm, Sweden
Bengt Lindström, MD, PhD, DrPH, Professor, Department of Public Health and Nursing, NTNU-Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
John R Lutzker, PhD, Professor of Public Health, Director, Center for Healthy Development SafeCare/UCEDD Centers, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Frank Mo, PhD, MD, Medical Research Scientist, Chronic Disease Management Division, Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario Canada
Hatim A Omar, MD Director, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Kentucky Children’s Hospital, University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Teodor T Postolache, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
I Leslie Rubin, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Morehouse School of Medicine; Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine; Co-director, Southeast Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit; President and Founder, Break the Cycle of Health Disparities, Inc.; Medical Director, The Rubin Center for Autism and Developmental Pediatrics
Patricia Schofield, RGN, PhD, PGDipEd, DipN, Professor and Deputy Dean for Research and Income Generation, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University, London, United Kingdom
Daniel TL Shek, PhD, FHKPS, BBS, SBS, JP, Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme) and Chair Professor, Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hunghom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PR China
Professor Seter Siziya, BA(Ed), MSc, PhD, DLSHTM, CStat, CSci, FRSS, Michael Chilufya Sata School of Medicine, Copperbelt University, Ndola, Zambia

NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

International Public Health Journal is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes four issues per year. The journal is owned and operated by Nova Science Publishers and funded entirely by subscription revenue and author-optional publication services. The journal is available in print and electronic formats.

There is no charge to submit your article and have it published in the journal. Nova offers a number of optional publication services that carry fees, but authors are not required to select these services, and the services won’t be offered until after acceptance of the articles. These services include Open Access, color printing, article offprints, discounted print copies of the journal issue, and licenses for use of the published articles.

Submission of an article must be accompanied by a signed Copyright Transfer and Disclosure Form, which can be printed or downloaded here: https://novapublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CTDF-Copyright-Transfer-and-Disclosure-Form.pdf. Submissions that do not include a signed Copyright Transfer and Disclosure Form will be treated as incomplete.

Authors will receive complimentary PDFs of their final articles upon publication. Print copies are offered to authors at a discounted price.

Authors may deposit and display the proofed versions of their articles in and on their personal non-commercial and affiliate non-commercial repositories and websites at any time. The same may be done with their final published articles only after a period of six months has elapsed from the day of publication. Authors may obtain reproduction and republication rights for their articles by transacting with Copyright Clearance Center or with Nova directly.

Manuscript Submissions
Before submitting your article, please read the complete notes and instructions below to ensure that you understand Nova’s manuscript requirements and publication procedures and that you are in compliance with the ethical standards rightfully set forth by Nova, the publishing industry, and the scientific community.

Manuscript submissions, books for review, and correspondence should be submitted by e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Joav Merrick.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD, MMedSci, DMSc
Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Israel
Professor of Pediatrics, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Kentucky Children’s Hospital, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Professor of Public Health, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
E-mail: jmerrick@internet-zahav.net

It is understood that articles submitted to the journal have not been submitted elsewhere for simultaneous publication consideration and have not been previously published, in whole or in part, unless the new article is an expansion of the original, in which case full transparency of the re-used portions must be provided. Please note that articles cannot be retracted or withdrawn after they have been published.

It is important that all authors and organizations where the research has been carried out have consented to the work’s submission and that all authors have significantly contributed.

Manuscript Preparation
All abstracts and articles must be written in English with references in standard Roman script.

Submissions should include the following items as separate files.

– Title Page
– Anonymized Manuscript

Title Page
The Title Page will remain separate from the manuscript throughout the peer-review process and will not be sent to the reviewers. The Title Page should include:

– A concise and informative title
– All authors’ complete names with academic degrees and complete affiliations
– A complete address for the corresponding author, including an e-mail address

If you have variations of the title that you would like Nova to use as the Running Head, please mark that at the beginning of the article.

Anonymized Manuscript
Please remove any identifying information, such as authors’ names or affiliations, from your manuscript before submission.

The manuscript should be typed in Times New Roman 12-point font and have the following components in numbered order and each beginning on a new page. The text should be under the headings, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References, Tables, and Figures. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words and should incorporate background, objective, study group, methods, results, and conclusions. At least three key words should appear under the Abstract.

Illustrations
All diagrams, photographs, illustrations, and charts (not tables) should be referred to in the text as Figures, and they should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. These figures must be supplied as separate electronic files named in the format in which they were created, and they must be one of the following types: tiff, bitmap, jpeg, gif, ppt, psd, png, or eps. The resolution of these figures must be at least 300 dpi and of good contrast. Please use patterning instead of colors for all graphs and charts when possible. Each Figure should include a title and short description.

Figures must also be placed inside or at the end of the manuscript. If scanned images are used, please retain the original hard copy of the figure for possible transmission to Nova Science Publishers. If previously published figures are used, written permission from the copyright holders must be obtained and submitted along with the text indicating the copyright holder’s citation instructions. Such permissions must grant unrestricted use.

Peer-Review
Double-blind peer-review and publication decision are carried out and made by the editors-in-chief in cooperation with the editorial team. Double-blind peer-review means that the identity of the author is not revealed to the reviewer and that the identity of the reviewer is not revealed to the author. Reviewers advise the editors to accept the manuscript for publication, reject the manuscript for publication, or to request modifications be made to the manuscript before acceptance for publication.

Editorial Team
The editorial team works diligently to maintain the quality of the journal’s content, and their responsibilities are many. Together they:

• identify trending, emerging, and important topics of research within their specific fields of study;
• recruit authors of quality research for publication;
• coordinate and oversee the peer-review process;
• liaise with authors, referees, and the publisher;
• write editorials;
• perform technical and developmental editing of manuscripts;
• act as the journal’s ambassadors to the global scientific community;

Publication Ethics and Research Conduct
Nova and its editors are committed to maintaining trust in the journal, the value of authorship, and the integrity of science. Authors should be eager to help us maintain these standards. Guidelines are for transparency are provided below to help authors avoid the appearance of ethical misconduct in their research and to help ensure adherence to the best practices set forth by national and international professional and regulatory bodies.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a blight on the scientific community and a crime. The unauthorized use or close imitation of another’s language, text, data, ideas, or theories is prohibited. In all instances of authorized use, full credit to and representation of the original author’s work must be provided. It is the authors’ responsibility to secure permission for the use of copyrighted material.

The journal will use CrossCheck and/or other software to screen submitted articles for plagiarism and will investigate all reports and suspicions of plagiarism. Authors suspected of plagiaristic misconduct will be contacted and given the opportunity to prove the validity of their work and refute the allegations. All instances of proven plagiarism will be reported to the Publisher, the editorial office, the author’s institute, and other governing bodies as necessary. Plagiarized articles already accepted for publication will be cancelled, and plagiarized articles that have already been published will be retracted and denounced in a public erratum.

Transparency
In order to establish transparency in your research, authors must be sure to provide statements on the following items.

1) Information regarding the source(s) of the work’s funding;
2) All financial and non-financial potential conflicts of interest;
3) A statement of informed consent for all studies that involve human participants;
4) A statements of human rights for all studies that involve human participants;
5) A statement on the humane treatment and proper welfare of all animals involved in the study.

The appropriate statements are provided below. They should be included in the article’s text in a section titled Ethical Compliance. This section should immediately precede the References section.

1) Sources of Funding
Please provide the names of all funding agencies, research grants, and grant numbers.

Statement
Source of Funding: This study was funded by ____________________.

2) Potential Conflicts of Interest
Authors are required to disclose all personal and professional relationships and interests that can be viewed as potentially imparting bias in the work. Readers are entitled to this information and to their own conclusions and perceptions of conflict. Potential conflicts could be financial relationships, employment, sponsorships, public holdings, competing interests, spousal interests, personal relationships, personal beliefs, etc.

Possible or perceived conflicts of interest among peer reviewers are handled by the Editors. A request for the reviewer to disclose all possible or perceived conflicts of interest will be included with all invitations for peer-review. When possible or perceived conflicts of interest are present, peer reviewers are expected to recuse themselves. When editors, editorial board members, and other members of the editorial team have possible or perceived conflicts of interests with content that is submitted to them, they should recuse themselves and reassign their tasks to other capable members. If possible or perceived conflict of interest cannot be avoided by reassignment, it should be suggested to the submitting author that he/she submit to a different journal.

The Committee on Publication Ethics provides guidelines for investigating the suspected non-disclosure of conflicts of interest.
https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides guidelines for the proper disclosure of conflicts of interest.
http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/

Statement
a) Disclosure of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

or

b) Disclosure of Interest:

3) Informed Consent
Study participants have the right to decide how the identifiable personal information gathered on them is used. It is essential that all participants (or guardians) give their written informed consent to participate in the study and its subsequent publication.

Statement
Informed consent was obtained from each individual participant involved in this study.

4) Statement of Human Rights
The wellbeing of human subjects takes precedence over the interests of science. If a study involves human participants, authors must include a statement to assure us that the study was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments.

Statement
This study was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments.

5) Statement of Animal Welfare
All studies that involve animals must contain a statement to assure us that the study and its procedures were approved by their affiliate institutional research ethics committees.

Statement
All animals involved in this study were treated in accordance with the ethical standards set forth by the institution at which the study was conducted.

Committee on Publication Ethics
Nova and its editors follow the Codes of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These codes and guidelines are valuable instructions that ensure transparency and fairness in research and publishing. The single document provides steps for submissions, peer-review, confidentiality, the creation and maintenance of editorial boards, editorial responsibilities and decision-making, communication policy, appeal procedures, handling complaints and instances of misconduct, quality assurance, publishing corrections and retractions, adherence to national and international ethics guidelines, and many more aspects of the publication process.

The COPE Codes of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines can be read at the link below. We recommend your familiarity with them while you conduct your research and publish with Nova and any other scientific publisher.
https://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct

If you notice any ethical misconduct in Nova’s publications, please contact us.

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Archiving
The journal content is preserved electronically to ensure that access can continue in perpetuity if the journal ceases publication. Nova complies with NISO standards in the event of journal transfer between publishers.