2006 South African Health Review Authors’ Guidelines

1. Broad Philosophical Approach

The philosophy underpinning the South African Health Review is to provide a reflection on progress with the transformation of the health system in providing improved care to the poor and the most vulnerable sections of South African society, and in promoting equity in this country. An important component of the Review is to reflect on the successes of the DoH and the challenges faced by them. The Review also provides an historical record of the developments and data in relation to the South African Health System.

All chapters where relevant should seek to build upon findings of earlier SAHRs, present findings and reflect progress or lack of it in relation to chapters in earlier Reviews.

Aims of the South African Health Review:

  • Monitor of trends within health and the health system and of progress in transformation and the move to equity
  • Comprehensive and independent review of developments in health sector over preceding twelve months
  • Identify blocks to policy implementation
  • Highlight possible policy implications of the research findings
  • Uncover voices of mothers, women and children as they experience Health System either as clients or providers in order to provide new insights, not gleaned through the more traditional chapters commissioned through the SAHR.

2. Target Audience

Primary audience include: Health service managers, policy makers and public health specialists.

Others include: media, parliamentarians, councillors, NGO's, academics (lecturers and students) health related international institutions and organisations.

3. 2006 SAHR

3.1. Theme and general content
The Review will focus on Maternal, Child and Women's health.

3.2. Content

A) The Review will consist of chapters on the following cross-cutting issues. These will include:

  • Health Information System, Monitoring and Evaluation
  • Financing Health Care
  • Development of the District Health System (DHS)
  • HIV and AIDS and TB
  • Morbidity and Mortality patterns
  • Health and Related Indicators

B) The Review will consist of chapters looking at:

  • Maternal and Child Health: International Context
  • Maternal and Child Health: National Context

C) In-depth chapters looking at the Child Health Issues will include:

• Analysis of key childhood preventive programmes

  • HIV and Infant Feeding
  • Child nutrition
  • Health of older children
  • Trauma and Violence
  • Chronic Diseases and Disabilities
  • Comprehensive care of children infected with HIV and AIDS

D) Maternal and Women's Health

  • Maternal Care (ante, peri and post)
  • Gender based violence
  • Chronic Diseases and Cancer in Women
  • Choice of Termination of Pregnancy
  • Options for HIV positive women
  • Cervical Cancer and STIs
  • Women's Mental Health
  • The impact of male sexuality on women's and children's health

E ) In addition, the Review will including about 10 'voices' of one page each of children and w omen clients as well as female nurses/ other female health workers to get a feel of how children and women experience the health system either as clients or service providers.

3.3. Chapter Format

Chapters should be between 4 000 – 7 000 words in length, written in an accessible style suitable for both an academic and a non-academic audience. The format for all chapters should be:

  • A brief abstrac t of no more than 300 words
  • A short introduction , which sets the scene including terms of reference and objective of the chapter and a brief overview of the methodology used in data collection
  • Key findings with an emphasis on the implications of the findings
  • Conclusions and recommendations. Recommendations should be as specific as possible – Example of an unsuitable recommendation ‘ improve the health system' or ‘increase the number of health workers'

3.4. Timelines & Review Process

  • First draft of the chapter should be provided by the date stipulated (to be negotiated with each team of authors).
  • The first drafts will be read and commented on by the internal editors and sent back to the authors.
  • Authors will have 2 weeks to review the comments and revise the chapter
  • The second draft will be sent to external peer-reviewers, national and provincial health departments
  • Authors may be requested to make additional changes as required
  • Final drafts will be sent to both the Authors and Printers
  • SAHR publication by September 2005

4. Other Considerations

4.1. Listing Provinces
Where data is given by provincial breakdown, list provinces in this order and with these designations/spellings:

Province / Abbreviation
Eastern Cape / EC
Free State / FS
Gauteng / GP
KwaZulu-Natal / KZN
Limpopo / LP
Mpumalanga / MP
Northern Cape / NC
North West / NW
Western Cape / WC
South Africa / Total / Average – as applicable / SA

4.2. Racial Groups
Racial groups should be designated: African, Coloured, Indian, and White (abbreviated as A, C, I, W where required) and should be given in that order. Where these terms are used to specify racial groups in sentences the first letter should be capitalised e.g. the number of White doctors.... printed on white paper...

4.3. Spelling
UK or SA English should be used for spelling. (i.e. in Word set the dictionary to be used under TOOLS)

4.4. Numbers
Numbers should not have commas, but one space between thousands, e.g. 10 000, 2 345
Where decimals are used; a full-stop is used to indicate the decimal place.

4.5. File formats
Documents should be in MS Word preferably, otherwise in WordPerfect or Rich Text Format. If other file formats are to be used, please contact HST for confirmation of suitability first.

4.6. Captions to tables, boxes and figures
Tables and figures should be numbered Table 1, Table 2, etc with the description in sentence case:

Example:

Table 1: This is the heading for this table in the South African Health Review

Reference in the text to figures or tables should be given as: either

A s can be seen / shown in Figure 3.

Or The number was higher in Gauteng (Table 2) than in the Free State (Table 3).

Indicate the source of the data below tables and figures with a short recognisable name of the source and the reference number.

Example:
Source: Census 2001 5

4.7. Graphics
Where graphics are included, the source data (table/excel spreadsheet) should also be provided to allow re-graphing as required.

4.8. Heading styles
Where possible, consistent formatting styles should be used – i.e. heading styles should be used to distinguish each heading level (Heading 1, Heading 2) etc. Headings should not be followed by punctuation. All other text should be defined as “normal”.

4.9. Footnotes
These should be inserted using the footnote feature built into the word processor, with continuous superscript Arabic numerals (a, b, c,) (so that they don't get confused with the numerical references).

4.10. Checking
Wherever possible authors should submit a hard copy together with an electronic copy to enable checking for errors introduced by formatting.

Wherever possible source figures / data should also be sent, either as another document/spreadsheet or a copy of the reference source to enable final checking of chapter content, and correlation between different chapters.

4.11. Referencing

  • Authors are requested to use as much as possible relevant South African Journals as reference and refer to South Africa Research relevant to the chapter contents .
  • Vancouver style referencing will be used
  • References should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. At the end of the article the full list of references should be shown. Number references in the order they appear in the text; do not alphabetise.
  • For non-referenced notes in the text, and notes about tables/figures use footnotes (see 9 above).
  • Authors must verify references against the original documents before submitting the manuscript.
  • The standard format for journal citations is to give the names and initial of all authors (unless there are more than six, in which case list the first six authors followed by et al ). The title of the article; the title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus; the year of publication; the volume number; and the first and last page numbers follow the authors' names.

Examples:

Journal article :
Gilson L. The lessons of user fee experience in Africa . Health Policy Plan 1997; 12(4):273-285.

More than six authors:
Schneider M, Claasens T, Kimme Z, Morgan R, Naicker S, Roberts A et al . We also count! The extent of moderate and severe reported disability and the nature of disability experience in South Africa . Summary Report for the Department of Health. October 1999.

Editor(s), compiler(s) as author:
Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York : Churchill Livingstone; 1996.

Chapter in a book:
Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd Ed. New York : Raven Press; 1995. p. 465-78.

Personal communications:
Personal communications should only be mentioned in the text, not as a formal reference. The fact that something is cited from such a communication should be noted as a footnote (see above for style convention). Authors should get permission from the source to cite personal communications.

Example: P Ames , Department of Surgery, University of Natal , Durban , personal communication.

For other examples of referencing such as website references, newspaper references and conference referencing, please see: Referencing Styles

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals - Sample References:

4.12. Acceptance of material
The Authors' contribution is commissioned by the editor/s of the South African Health Review, and the editor/s reserve the right to edit drafts submitted to them in consultation with reviewers and authors. HST reserves the right not to use material that is deemed to be of unacceptable quality for the SAHR.