Instructions for Authors

Authors must ensure that their manuscripts fall within the scope of the Journal of Digital Health and Advanced Biomaterials (JDHAB) and comply with the journal’s ethical, reporting, and formatting requirements. Submissions that do not follow the official manuscript template, manuscript structure, reporting requirements, or reference style may be returned for technical correction before peer review.

1. Scope

JDHAB publishes scientifically rigorous contributions at the interface of digital health and advanced biomaterials. Digital health is understood as the purposeful application of digital technologies to health assessment, diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, rehabilitation, imaging, structured clinical documentation, and the generation of reproducible, clinically relevant evidence.

Submissions involving computational methods, digital workflows, imaging systems, measurement technologies, or artificial intelligence are welcome when supported by methodological transparency, analytical reliability, validation, and auditable workflows. Manuscripts that invoke technology in broad or generic terms, without clear scientific or translational relevance, may be considered outside the journal’s scope.

2. Article types

JDHAB considers the following categories of manuscripts: Original Research, Review Article, Methods / Technical Note / Validation Study, Case Report / Case Series, and Editorial. Article-specific limits for word count, abstract format, display items, and references must follow the requirements provided in the journal’s Article Types & Limits section.

3. Manuscript preparation

All submissions must be prepared using the official journal files available below:

Manuscripts must be submitted in clear, formal English and prepared to permit rigorous editorial and peer evaluation. Authors should draft the manuscript in the official JDHAB template and, when double-anonymized review is required, derive the blinded review file from that same structure.

4. Core formatting standard

  • Page size: A4 portrait.
  • Layout: Single-column author files only. Two-column author files are not accepted.
  • Body text: Use the official JDHAB template formatting. Do not rebuild the manuscript in a generic biomedical layout.
  • Headings: Use sentence case only. Do not use improvised Title Case or all caps for main headings.
  • Manual formatting: Do not use tabs, repeated spaces, floating text boxes, or manual line breaks to force alignment.
  • Pagination: Do not insert manual pagination in the author file. Production pagination is handled later if needed.

5. Technical standards

  • Title page: Provide the full article title, full author names, academic degrees, institutional affiliations, ORCID iDs, and complete corresponding author information.
  • Abstract: Abstract format and length must follow the requirements for the selected article type.
  • Keywords: Provide 3 to 6 keywords immediately below the abstract when required by the article type.
  • Tables: Tables must be editable, clearly structured, and created with the Word table tool. Tables pasted as images or screenshots are not accepted.
  • Figures: Figures must be of publication quality. Raster images should generally be at least 300 dpi, with higher resolution used when appropriate for line art or combination figures. Authors are responsible for image quality, permissions, and anonymization where applicable.
  • Reporting quality: Methods, measurements, validation procedures, analytical steps, and quality-control procedures must be described with sufficient clarity for editorial and peer assessment.

6. Citations and references

References must follow Vancouver style in accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations and NLM Citing Medicine. Citations in the text must be numbered consecutively in the order of first appearance and presented as Arabic superscript numerals.

References cited only in tables or figure legends must be numbered according to the first mention of the corresponding table or figure in the main text. Journal title abbreviations must conform to the NLM Catalog / MEDLINE.

Authors’ names must be presented as surname followed by initials, without periods between initials. For references with up to 6 authors, all authors should be listed. For references with more than 6 authors, list the first 6 authors followed by “et al.” Article titles must be presented in sentence case. DOI must be provided whenever available.

7. Publication ethics and editorial requirements

All submissions must comply with JDHAB’s standards of publication ethics, research integrity, and editorial transparency. Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted work is original, ethically conducted, accurately reported, and prepared in accordance with the journal’s editorial and ethical requirements.

  • Originality: Manuscripts must be original, must not have been published previously, and must not be under consideration elsewhere.
  • Authorship: Authorship must reflect substantial scholarly contribution and shared responsibility for the integrity of the work. Any change in authorship after submission must be justified in writing and approved by all authors.
  • Conflicts of interest and funding: Authors must disclose all relevant financial, commercial, institutional, or personal interests that could influence the work, together with all sources of funding and the role of the funder, if any.
  • Ethics approval: Research involving human participants, identifiable clinical information, clinical images, or animals must include appropriate ethics approval whenever required by applicable standards or regulations.
  • Consent: Explicit informed consent must be documented whenever required, especially in case reports, clinical imaging, and identifiable material. Consent for publication must be obtained when identifiable information or images are involved.
  • Image integrity: Misleading manipulation of photographs, radiographic images, scans, micrographs, or other visual materials is not permitted. The journal may request original unedited files during editorial assessment.
  • Data availability: Original research manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement.
  • Code availability: Include a Code Availability Statement whenever applicable.
  • Reporting guidelines: Authors should follow appropriate reporting guidelines, including PRISMA, CONSORT, STROBE, CARE, or other relevant standards whenever applicable.
  • Artificial intelligence tools: Any use of artificial intelligence tools, including large language models, for manuscript preparation, image generation, coding assistance, or data analysis must be transparently disclosed. Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors.
  • Integrity: Fabrication, falsification, deceptive image generation, inappropriate image manipulation, or undisclosed manipulation of primary data is prohibited.
  • Submissions from editors: Manuscripts submitted by editors, Editorial Board members, or journal staff are eligible for consideration, but they undergo independent editorial handling. The author holding an editorial role takes no part in reviewer selection, editorial assessment, or the final decision on that manuscript.

For full details, authors should consult the journal’s Publication Ethics policy.

8. Declarations required at submission

All manuscripts must include the declarations applicable to the study design and article type. Authors should provide these statements in the manuscript file, typically before the references or in a dedicated declarations section when appropriate.

  • Ethics approval: State the approving committee or institutional body and approval number, when applicable.
  • Consent to participate: State whether informed consent was obtained, waived, or not applicable.
  • Consent for publication: State whether consent for publication was obtained when identifiable information or images are involved.
  • Competing interests: Provide a full conflict of interest statement for all authors.
  • Funding: Report all funding sources or state that no external funding was received.
  • Data availability statement: State where the supporting data are available, under what conditions, or why access is restricted.
  • Code availability statement: Provide code availability information whenever applicable.
  • AI use disclosure: Declare any use of artificial intelligence tools in drafting, image generation, coding, or analysis.

9. Open access and copyright

  • Open access: JDHAB publishes all content in immediate open access.
  • License: Published articles are distributed under the CC BY 4.0 license.
  • Fees: There are currently no submission fees and no article processing charges.
  • Copyright: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.