Ethical and regulatory guidelines

All research must meet ethical and regulatory guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements of the study country. The Editors may ask for written confirmation of this when considered necessary.

For authors wishing to submit papers on systematic reviews and meta-analyses to Epidemiology and Infection, please follow the PRISMA guidelines. These are described on their website: http://www.prisma-statement.org

Epidemiology and Infection also subscribes to the STROBE initiative for observational studies: www.strobe-statement.org and its extension STROME-ID for molecular epidemiological studies.

For authors wishing to submit Randomised Controlled Trials, please follow the CONSORT statement (www.consort-statement.org).

Authors wishing to submit Outbreak reports and Infection Control intervention stuides in nosocomial infection, please follow the ORION statement (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/amr/Reporting_Guidelines/ORION).

Those intending to submit a review or meta-analysis are invited to discuss objectives and content with the Editor-in-Chief before submission.

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals."

Publication Ethics

Please visit here for information on our ethical guidelines.

We take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Text taken directly or closely paraphrased from earlier published work that has not been acknowledged or referenced will be considered plagiarism.  Submitted manuscripts in which such text is identified will be withdrawn from the editorial process. If a concern is raised about possible plagiarism in an article submitted to or published in the journal, this will be investigated fully and dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines. We use iThenticate software to screen papers for unoriginal material.

Preparation of manuscript files

Manuscripts must be in English and typed double-spaced. Allow margins of at least 1" (25 mm); do not hyphenate words at the end of lines and do not justify right margins. Include a title page, summary, text, acknowledgements, declaration of interest, references, tables, and legends for illustrations. Number the lines in your submission. Number the pages consecutively, beginning with the title page. Type the page number in the upper or lower right-hand corner of each page. Numbers should be spelled out when they occur at the beginning of a sentence; use Arabic numerals elsewhere. Abbreviations should be used sparingly and non-standard abbreviations should be defined at their first occurrence. Metric system (SI) units should be used. Manuscripts that do not conform to the style of Epidemiology and Infection will be returned without review.

Title page

The title page should include:

• The title of the article, which should be short (preferably up to 12 words) but informative and accurately reflect the content.
• Authors’ names and contact details: please list a brief affiliation for each author including country (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names, and in addition, indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address
• Word count, including all text but excluding tables, figures and references.

Authorship

Authorship should be based on the following principles, as outlined by the ICMJE and in the Cambridge University Press Publishing Ethics Guidelines:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The corresponding author will be prompted to provide further details about contributions to the article using the CRediT taxonomy. A paper with corporate (collective) authorship must specify the key persons responsible for the article and people who have contributed to the article but do not meet the full criteria for authorship should be recognised in the acknowledgements section; their contribution can be described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Editors may require authors to justify the assignment of authorship.

We strongly encourage including meaningful national representation in the authorship (e.g. if a study has taken place in Burma, including at least one author from Burma). 

Summary

The second page should carry a summary of 150-200 words. The summary should state the purposes of the study or investigation, basic procedures (selection of study subjects or experimental animals; observational and analytical methods), main findings (give specific data and their statistical significance, if possible), and the principal conclusions. The summary should be one continuous paragraph which highlights the importance of the findings outlined in the study.

You will also be asked within the online submission system to outline your key results and their importance in 3-5 short bullet points.

Text

Original Papers:* The text of articles should normally be divided into sections with the headings Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Papers should be only as long as they need to be, and preferably between 2000 and 4000 words (excluding references). Please keep the number of references below 40.

Short Reports:* The journal also publishes Short Reports in the form of a continuous narrative with the only separate section being the Summary. These short reports are not published more rapidly but are intended to be the vehicles for valuable but limited or preliminary observations. The number of words should be below 3000 (excluding references), and we would normally expect not more than one table or figure, and up to 10 references.

Review Articles:* The journal welcomes Review Articles, Editorials and leading articles on recent developments, controversial issues and other aspects of infectious disease epidemiology. These are usually commissioned. Unsolicited papers are also welcomed, and preliminary discussion by email or letter with the Editor-in-Chief is advised. All papers in this category, including those commissioned, are peer reviewed, and therefore publication cannot be guaranteed.

A review should provide a critical assessment of the existing literature, and include the author's conclusions in the form of a Summary at the end of the paper. Reviews should be concise with between 2500 and 4000 words. There should be up to a maximum of 60 references, which should be in the journal style (see "Journal Style" section below).  There is no limit to tables and figures, but we would ask that they are restricted to those that are truly necessary to support the discussion of the review. We do not accept diagrams in 3D.  

From the Field:* These reports are intended as short (up to 2000 words), early descriptions of ongoing or recent incidents such as outbreaks. A report ‘from the field’ should describe the background, the epidemiology of the incident, and describe planned or implemented control measures and next steps. The abstract should be no longer than 100 words, and a maximum of 15 references is allowed. These reports will be rapidly reviewed by an expert in the field to ensure rapid publication. Authors of potential ‘From the Field’ reports are welcome to consult the Editor first about suitability and content.

For Debate: A new type of review which should deal with controversial issues. These are also welcomed.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses

For authors wishing to submit papers on systematic reviews and meta-analyses to Epidemiology and Infection, please follow the PRISMA guidelines. These are described on their website: http://www.prisma-statement.org.

Epidemiology and Infection also subscribes to the STROBE initiative for observational studies: www.strobe-statement.org.

Those intending to submit a review or meta-analysis are invited to discuss objectives and content with the Editor-in-Chief before submission.

Letters to the Editor: Epidemiology and Infection only accepts letters related to papers published by the journal. These should be uploaded in the normal way but addressed, as a letter, to the Editor-in-Chief stating clearly the paper to which the letter applies. All letters are sent to the corresponding author of the original paper for response or comment; no further correspondence is generally allowed. If possible, the letter should be sent as soon as possible after electronic publication of the paper in question. Epidemiology and Infection will then endeavour to publish the paper, letter and response together. Short updates to papers previously published by the authors may also send the update as a Letter. The Editor's decision on whether or not to publish the correspondence is final.

General: All manuscripts should be submitted in English using English spellings. Manuscripts written by those whose primary language is not English should be edited carefully for language prior to submission. Authors who are not fluent in written English are encouraged to seek assistance in this regard before submitting their manuscripts. The journal aims to communicate and educate across disciplines, and many of its readers do not have English as their first language, so plain language is always preferred.

* These article types may be eligible for APC waivers or discounts under one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access.

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the following section.

Financial support

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example,

"This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with "and" before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the National Institutes of Health (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)". Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."

Conflict of interest

Please provide details of all known Conflicts of Interest.

• Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations. 

• Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work. 

• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors. 

• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”.

Journal style: Guidance to authors

Spelling: It is the convention of Epidemiology and Infection to use '-ize', and not '-ise', e.g. characterize, immunize. The following spelling is used for words that frequently appear:

programme (but program for computer software), diarrhoea, faeces, aetiology, centre, paediatric, titre, litre, analyse, epidemiological (not epidemiologic), and similarly, microbiological, serological, etc. Upper case in first letter and italics is used only for a microorganism when it is speciated e.g. Campylobacter sp. or Campylobacter jejuni, notwhen otherwise used, e.g. '…following culture, campylobacter were isolated ……'

Dates: The format '26 January 1993' is used, and year durations are not elided, e.g. '1993–1996' not '1993–6'.

Percentages: Use 'per cent' when following a figure that is spelt (e.g. at start of sentence 'Twelve per cent ….') and % when in text following numeral (e.g. 12%).

Numerals: Use numerals for figures over 10, and spell out figures one to ten. Note, however, that all time durations are numerals e.g. 1 h, 3 days, 5 weeks (unless beginning a sentence). Numerals are also used when numbers appear closely together, e.g. '3 of 11, 6 of 9, 14 of 21', as this convention improves the visual appearance of the text. Thousands and millions are not separated by commas e.g. '1200000' not '1,200,000', but will be separated by half spaces during printing. Avoid beginning a sentence with numbers over ten or decimal/fraction numbers. Spell out any numbers that are used to begin a sentence, e.g. Five…: Nineteen…; One hundred and twenty-four…

References

Number references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables and legends by Arabic numerals in square brackets (not superscript numbers). References cited only in tables or in legends to figures should be numbered in accordance with a sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or illustration.

Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the US National Library of Medicine inIndex Medicus. The titles of journals should be spelled out in full. Consult List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus,published annually as a separate publication by the library and as a list in the January issue of Index Medicus.

Try to avoid using abstracts as references; 'unpublished observations' and 'personal communications' may not be used as references, although references to written, not oral, communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Include among the references papers accepted but not yet published, or published online only [supply Digital Object Identifier (doi) reference, if known]; designate the journal and add '(in press)'. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as 'unpublished observations'.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

Do not insert full stops after author initials, commas after author surnames, or 'and' between last two authors.

Only use upper case first letters for the first word of the title of a paper or when a proper noun, e.g. 'Isolation from rabbits trapped in Australia', not 'Isolation from Rabbits Trapped in Australia' (even if this was the presentation in the journal of source).

Do not include issue number of a journal after volume e.g. '1994; 10: 183–188.' not '1994; 10 (12): 183–188'.

Do not elide page numbers e.g. '183–188; 11–18' not '183–8; 11–8'.

Ensure when giving a reference to a book that the town/city/country of the publisher is given in addition to their name.

Examples of correct forms of references are given below.

Journals

(1) Standard journal article –

List all authors when three or fewer; when four or more, list only first author and add et al.

Wrensch M, et al. (2005) History of chickenpox and shingles and prevalence of antibodies to varicella-zoster virus and three other herpesviruses among adults with glioma and controls. American Journal of Epidemiology; 161: 929–938. Example of an article published online (but not yet in a printed issue):

Kiely RA, et al. Emergence of group B Streptococcus serotype IV in women of child-bearing age in Ireland.Epidemiology and Infection. Published online: 7 June 2010. doi:10.1017/S0950268810001275.

(2) Corporate author

National Institutes of Health. (2002) Consensus Development Conference Statement. Management of hepatitis C: 2002, 10–12 June 2002. Hepatology; 36: S3–S20.

(3) No author given

Anon. (1981) Coffee drinking and cancer of the pancreas [Editorial]. British Medical Journal; 283: 628.

(4) Journal supplement

Mastri AR. (1980) Neuropathy of diabetic neurogenic bladder. Annals of Internal Medicine; 92 : 316–318.

Frumin AM, Nussbaum J, Esposito M. (1979) Functional asplenia: demonstration of splenic activity by bone marrow scan [Abstract]. Blood; 54 (Suppl. 1): 26a.

(5) Journal paginated by issue

Seaman WB. (1981) The case of the pancreatic pseudocyst. Hospital Practice; 16: 24–25.

Books and other monographs

(6) Personal author(s)

Eisen HN. (1974) Immunology: An Introduction to Molecular and Cellular Principles of the Immune Response, 5th edn. New York: Harper and Row, pp. 406.

(7) Editor, compiler, chairman as author

Dausset J, Colombani J (eds). (1972) Histocompatibility Testing. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1973, pp. 12–18.

(8) Chapter in book

Weinstein L, Swartz MN. (1974) Pathogenic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman Jr. WA, Sodeman WA, eds. Pathologic Physiology: Mechanisms of Disease. Philadelphia: Saunders, pp. 457–472.

(9) Published proceedings paper

Dupont B. (1974) Bone marrow transplantation in severe combined immuno-deficiency with an unrelated MLC compatible donor. In: White HJ, Smith R, eds. Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for Experimental Hematology. Houston: International Society for Experimental Hematology, pp. 44–46.

(10) Monograph in a series

Hunninghake GW, et al. (1980) The human alveolar macrophage. In: Harris CC, ed. Cultured Human Cells and Tissues in Biomedical Research. New York: Academic Press, pp. 54–56. (Stoner GD, ed. Methods and Perspectives in Cell Biology, vol. 1.)

(11) Agency publication

Ranofsky AL. Surgical operations in short-stay hospitals: United States – 1975. Hyattsville, MD, USA: National Center for Health Statistics, 1978; DHEW publication no (PHS) 78–1785. (Vital and health statistics; series 13; no. 34.)

(12) Dissertation or thesis

Cairns RB, (1965) Infrared spectroscopic studies of solid oxygen (dissertation). Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California, 156 pp.

Other articles

(13) Newspaper article

Shaffer RA. (1977) Advances in chemistry are starting to unlock mysteries of the brain: discoveries could help cure alcoholism and insomnia, explain mental illness. How the messengers work. Wall Street Journal; 12 August.

(14) Magazine article

Roueche B. (1971) Annals of medicine: the Santa Claus culture. The New Yorker; 4 September: pp. 66–81.

(15) Citation of databases or other sources from the internet

These should be included in the numbered list of References at the end of the article in the following format:

Full name of database [www address(URL)]. Date accessed.

See example below:

1. Swiss Life Sciences (SLS) database (http://www.swisslifesciences.com/swisslifesciences/db/). Accessed 7 April 2005.

The text should contain a shortened version of the database title (for example, an acronym) and a numerical indicator linking it to the Reference section. See example below:

…details can be found in the SLS database [1]. More information is…

Tables

Type each table double spaced on a separate sheet. Tables should be placed in the main manuscript file at the end of the document, not within the main text. Do not submit tables as pictures or photographs. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. Identify statistical measures of variations such as standard deviation, standard error of the mean. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical rules. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source obtain permission and acknowledge fully.

Figures

You can find further information about how to prepare your figures on this page.

Figures should be prepared electronically, or scanned from high-quality originals: freehand or typewritten lettering is unacceptable. Letters, numbers and symbols should be clear and even throughout and of sufficient size so that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. 9pt Arial font is ideal. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations, not on the illustrations themselves.

At initial submission, figures may be submitted as TIF, JPG, GIF, EPS or PNG files. Please note that figures saved as PDF, PPT and DOC files are not accepted. When you submit your revised manuscript, figures should be submitted as TIF or EPS files at 100% of final size and at appropriate resolution (1000–1200 dpi for line drawings, 300 dpi for photographs and halftone images, and at least 600dpi for combination figures). Other file formats or figures 'pasted' into Word files are not accepted. Colour figures should be saved in CMYK (not RGB, except for Supplementary files).

Photomicrographs must have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows or letters used in the photomicrographs should contrast with the background. If composite or multiple electronmicrographs, electrophoresis patterns, etc. are to be included, authors are requested to ensure that all the original photographic plates are of matched densities and contrast. If photographs of persons are used either the subjects must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain. Figures such as pie charts, histograms and bar charts that are drawn in three dimensions without three-dimensional graph axes are not accepted. Only figures in which the axes have three dimensions will be considered for publication in three dimensions.

Legends for figures

Type legends for illustrations double spaced, starting on a separate page, with arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Explain the internal scale and identify method of staining in photomicrographs. If your figure contains third-party copyrighted material, you should include a credit in your figure caption.

Units of measurement

Measurements of length, height, weight and volume should be reported in metric units (metre, kilogram, litre) or their decimal multiples. The terms kilobases and base pairs (abbreviations kb and bp) should be used when referring to nucleic acid sequences and the molecular mass of proteins and peptides should be given in kilodaltons (kDa). Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be given in millimetres of mercury (mmHg). All haematological and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric svstem in terms of the International System of Units (SI). Editors may request that alternative or non-SI units be added by the authors before publication.

Abbreviations and symbols

Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. Do not use ampersands (&) unless part of a formal name, e.g. Procter & Gamble.

Online supplementary material

The online platform gives authors the opportunity to include material that it would be impossible or impractical to include in the printed version, for example, extensive datasets, complex mathematical calculations, 3D-structures, 3D-images or video files. You must upload Supplementary Material at the same time as you submit your manuscript, and you must give details in your cover letter of all supplementary files uploaded. If accepted, this material will be placed in the Cambridge University Press Supplementary Material data archive, and it will be accessible online. Authors should ensure that they mention within their article that Supplementary Material is available on the Cambridge Core website.

At the head of the first page of your Supplementary Material file, type 'Epidemiology and Infection', the article title, the names of the authors, the heading 'Supplementary Material', and then the relevant inclusions. Please note that captions or legends should be included for all figures and tables in Supplementary Material. You should number figures or tables with the prefix 'S', e.g. Supplementary Figure S1, Supplementary Table S1. Colour images as Supplementary Material must be saved in RGB format (not CMYK).

Although Supplementary Material is peer reviewed, it is not checked, copyedited or typeset after acceptance and it is loaded onto the journal's website exactly as supplied. You should check your Supplementary Material carefully to ensure that it adheres to journal styles. Corrections cannot be made to the Supplementary Material after acceptance of the manuscript. Please bear this in mind when deciding what content to include as Supplementary Material.

Scholarly Collaboration Networks (SCNs)

Recent years have seen the emergence of social networks for researchers that allow them to profile their work, as well as find, follow and communicate with others. These are sometimes known as scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs). Academia.edu and ResearchGate are examples, both of which are commercial entities.

Cambridge’s policies are more restrictive in what we allow authors to in post in SCNs – because they are commercial sites that do not meet funder requirements for OA and do not preserve the academic record.

Cambridge wants to find ways to help SCNs benefit academia whilst respecting copyright law. At present, some SCNs are actively encouraging illegal content sharing. We support the STM Association's voluntary principles as a starting point for a better definition of what social sharing means in practice.