Author Guidelines

The journal Hacia la Promoción de la Salud is an open-access, scientific publication that does not charge article processing charges (APCs). It is indexed in the National Bibliographic Index Publindex of the Ministry of Science and Technology (category B) and in the SCImago international classification system, with national and international distribution. The journal is listed in the following Indexing and Abstracting Systems (SIRES):

• Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature – LILACS

• Scopus

• DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals

• Redalyc - Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal

• Scientific Electronic Library Online - SciELO – Colombia

• SciELO Citation Index

The journal is published quarterly (3 issues per year: January–April, May–August, September–December) in both PDF and HTML formats (SciELO Colombia). Its purpose is to disseminate scientific and academic knowledge from research in the fields of health, social sciences, and related areas through the publication of original research, systematic reviews, and applied studies conducted worldwide:

• Conceptualization of health and life

• Public health

• Health education

• Healthy lifestyles

• Social communication in health

• Social marketing

• Health services orientation

• Healthy public policies

• Health-promoting environments

• Negotiation and conflict management

• Social participation

• Strategic partnerships

• Social and human development

• Social sciences and health

• Social determinants

• Social determinants of health

Open Access Policy: The journal’s web content is distributed under a Creative Commons license, which allows others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the work, even for commercial purposes, provided that the authorship of the original creation is acknowledged.

Each published article receives a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which guarantees its permanent location and its integration into the SIRES.

TYPES OF PUBLICATIONS

Editorial: the viewpoint of the Editorial Board, the editor, or guest authors.

Letter to the Editor: a short communication of up to 5 pages in length, expressing agreement or disagreement with a specific topic published in the journal Hacia la Promoción de la Salud, with a maximum of 7 bibliographic references.

Scientific and Technological Research Article: These include articles presenting the results of original research or documented processes in the subject areas covered by the journal. They must include at least 25 bibliographic sources.

Systematic review: Using an explicit, rigorous, and reproducible methodological approach, it identifies, selects, critically evaluates, and synthesizes the available evidence on a topic. It is characterized by an exhaustive search strategy across multiple sources of information and, when relevant, the use of quantitative methods to integrate the results. It includes approximately 50 bibliographic references.

The structure of the last two types of articles should be as follows: title and authors, abstract and keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusions, contributions of each author, and bibliographic references. It may include acknowledgments.

SELECTION OF ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION

Each article received undergoes a review and selection process. This begins with verification of compliance with the guidelines for authors, as outlined in the author checklist.

The review and initial selection of manuscripts are the responsibility of the Editorial Board, which accepts or rejects submissions based on scientific quality, methodological scope (which must be at least correlational), alignment with the journal’s thematic focus, and the timeliness of the results.

Articles with five (5) or more authors will be considered only when the number of authors is fully justified by the nature of the study. Under this condition, we will accept multicenter studies, research involving international collaboration, or studies whose scope and scientific contribution unequivocally require the participation of multiple researchers. In all cases, the specific contribution of each author to the manuscript must be explicitly stated according to the CRediT taxonomy: https://credit.niso.org/. Submissions that do not meet this criterion will be rejected during the initial editorial review phase.

It is important to note that a single author (including the editor) may not publish more than one article per issue or more than once a year in the journal.

The Editorial Board may request modifications and/or make recommendations deemed necessary to bring the manuscript into line with the journal’s guidelines.

The manuscript will undergo a plagiarism check via Turnitin.

Following this review, it will undergo a double-blind peer review by two external academic reviewers who are unaffiliated with both the authors and the editorial committee (national or international); who will issue, in the evaluation format established by the journal (see article evaluation format), a decision that may be: approved without changes; approved subject to minor changes and does not require re-evaluation; approved subject to major changes and requires re-evaluation; or rejected as unpublishable in the journal. In the event that the reviewers’ opinions give rise to controversy, a third peer review will be requested, and ultimately these issues must be resolved by the editor.

You can view the review form on the journal’s website, under the “Forms” section.

The review process is conducted on a double-blind basis, ensuring the anonymity of both authors and reviewers. The results will be communicated to the author, either to request the necessary revisions to the manuscript or to explain the reasons for its rejection. If revisions are requested, once the revised manuscript is received, compliance with the reviewers’ recommendations will be verified, and the justifications for any observations not incorporated will be analyzed. Once this phase is complete, and if necessary, the manuscript may be returned to the author for further revisions.

The review and evaluation process for submitted material can take an average of six months; furthermore, receipt of the manuscript does not imply its immediate approval and publication; the average time to publication for an article is 12 months.

SUBMISSION OF THE ARTICLE

Title and authors: The title of the work must be limited to a maximum of 15 words and must not contain abbreviations or acronyms.

Below the title, the last names of each author, separated by a hyphen, and their full first names should appear, centered and in italics. In superscript and footnotes for each author, the following must be specified: the highest academic degree attained, institutional affiliation, city or state, country, institutional email address, ORCID code, and the link to the Google Scholar profile.

The COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) authorship policy defines an “author” as someone who makes a substantial intellectual contribution, a requirement outlined in the rights transfer agreement available on the journal’s website under the “Formats” section.

The first author will be the one listed in the databases of the various indexing services. The corresponding author must be indicated; otherwise, the first author will be assumed to be the corresponding author.

Abstract: in Spanish, English, and Portuguese, not exceeding 250 words. It must include objectives, methods with dates and locations of the study, results, and conclusions. It must not include abbreviations or bibliographic citations.

Keywords: Only those accepted by international databases should be used; these can be consulted at the following addresses:

• Spanish: https://decs.bvsalud.org/es/

• English: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/

• Portuguese: https://decs.bvsalud.org/

The number of keywords provided must be five per language.

Body of the article:

• Introduction: states the rationale and objectives of the research; does not include results or conclusions.

• Materials and methods: describe the type of study and its design, the population, the sampling technique, and the sample selection method (in quantitative studies), as well as the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Specify the techniques, instruments, and procedures used to collect and analyze the data. Address the use of AI and justify the ethical aspects of the research.

• Results: presents the results in a logical order; they should be concise and clear. Results found in tables or figures are not repeated in the text.

• Discussion: This section is based on the results obtained in the research. It discusses the relationship between these results and those obtained by other authors, highlights the similarities and differences found, and emphasizes new aspects. It does not repeat information included in the previous sections. It examines the implications of the findings, their limitations, and their implications for future research.

• Conclusions: present the most relevant findings of the research in direct relation to the subject of study. It is recommended that they be aligned with the stated objectives, so that these serve as a guiding framework for their formulation, and coherently integrate the various dimensions of the problem addressed.

• Acknowledgments: Authors may acknowledge individuals and collaborators, as well as funding agencies, departments, and institutions that supported the conduct of the research.

• Conflicts of interest: Authors must explicitly state the existence or absence of conflicts of interest.

• Funding sources: if the research received funding, the name of the project, the entity or person who funded the work, and the project code or identifier must be indicated.

• References: must be formatted according to the Vancouver style. They should be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order as they appear, with Arabic numerals placed in parentheses. The reference list should begin on a separate page at the end of the article.

References must be from the last 5 years, and only 20% of references from gray literature are accepted.

Consult the Index Medicus list of periodicals for the exact abbreviation of the cited journal; if the journal does not appear, write the full title of the journal.

• Tables and Figures: Tables and figures must include a brief title, location, date, and source, and where necessary, it must be clarified whether they are original work. The header of each column in the table must include the unit of measurement. Tables and graphs in image format are not accepted. Illustrations (graphs, diagrams, drawings, maps, photographs, among others) and tables must include their respective captions and titles, be numbered consecutively, and the number of illustrations must not exceed four per article. Each illustration must be included in the text where appropriate and properly cited.

For illustrations not produced by the authors or taken from a journal, book, website, or similar source subject to copyright, the necessary permissions to reproduce the material must be obtained, and the submission must be accompanied by written authorization from the respective publisher or authors.

• Abbreviations and Acronyms: These should be used as sparingly as possible, and preferably those that are internationally recognized. When cited for the first time in the text, they must be preceded by the full expression.

• Footnotes: These should be limited to the author’s comments and clarifications. Personal communications must be indicated in parentheses within the body of the text (not in footnotes) and must include the date and institution of the person providing the communication. Avoid including unpublished documents, even if they have been presented at conferences or congresses, articles submitted for publication that have not been accepted, and abstracts. If it is absolutely necessary to cite unpublished sources, these must be mentioned in the text in parentheses.

SUBMISSION OF THE DOCUMENT

The document must be submitted via the journal’s OJS platform, which serves as a repository for the editorial process. It stores the review history and the reasons for acceptance or rejection of each manuscript, ensuring the traceability of the process.

The document must be formatted in Microsoft Word, using Arial font, size 12; it must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages, including bibliographic references, in letter size; margins must be 3 cm on each side. Attached to this submission, please send the completed forms for: the Letter of Assignment of Rights, each author’s CV, and the checklist, which can be found on the journal’s website.

COPYRIGHT

If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the reproduction rights will become the property of the University of Caldas. As previously indicated, each article must be accompanied by a rights assignment letter signed by the authors, expressly stating that the manuscript is unpublished and that the reproduction rights are exclusively assigned to the journal Hacia la Promoción de la Salud. This document also includes other relevant details, including a statement that the article has not been simultaneously submitted for review or publication in another journal.

Similarly, it is the authors’ responsibility to obtain the necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyrighted material. In such cases, they must precisely identify the table, figure, or text excerpt to be reproduced, as well as provide the complete bibliographic reference of the original source.

Finally, the opinions, judgments, and viewpoints expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the journal’s editorial criteria or policies.

Ethical considerations, informed consent, and participant protection: In accordance with the principles established in the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki, as well as the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the best practices promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics, the journal requires that all research involving human subjects comply with international ethical standards and current national regulations.

This policy applies to studies involving human participants, personally identifiable data, medical records, and images (photographs, videos, or similar).

Authors must explicitly state that they obtained prior, free, and written informed consent from the participants, as well as approval from a research ethics committee, when applicable. Such consent must have informed the participants about the study’s objectives, potential risks and benefits, the use of their data and images, and the possibility of publishing the results in scientific journals.

In the manuscript, authors must include an explicit statement regarding compliance with these ethical requirements. The journal may request, at any time during the editorial process, documentary evidence of informed consent and the corresponding ethical approval.

In the case of case reports or materials that include images or potentially identifiable information, specific consent for publication will be required, ensuring the anonymization of the data.

Exceptions may be considered for studies using fully anonymized data or classified as low-risk, provided that this condition is duly justified and supported by an ethics committee.

The journal reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with these ethical principles, as well as to take appropriate action in the event of potential misconduct.

Policy on the use of artificial intelligence: where applicable, authors must explicitly declare the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools employed in the preparation of the manuscript. This declaration will be included in the methods section and will include: tools used, purpose, and how AI was integrated into the research process.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, originality, and ethical conduct of the content, including errors or issues arising from the use of AI. AI may not be listed as an author of the manuscript.

The confidentiality of the information must be safeguarded, and any potential bias introduced by AI must be disclosed, along with the actions taken to mitigate it. The use of AI must adhere to ethical principles, avoiding practices such as plagiarism or the generation of false information. Researchers must verify the accuracy of all content produced by AI.

ADDITIONAL POLICIES

In addition to these guidelines, the journal has ethical policies that can be consulted at https://revistasojs.ucaldas.edu.co/index.php/hacialapromociondelasalud/ethics.