Privacy Statement

International • Double-Anonymised Peer-Reviewed • Open Access • English Only

Privacy Statement and Personal Data Protection

Personal information entered into the Health Sciences Quarterly (Health Sci. Q.) manuscript management system, including names, affiliations, e-mail addresses, ORCID iDs, correspondence details, and submission-related information, is used only for the scientific, editorial, technical, ethical, administrative, indexing, archiving, and publishing purposes of the journal.

Use of Personal Information

The journal may use personal information for the following purposes:

  • Managing manuscript submission, editorial screening, peer review, revision, acceptance, production, and publication processes;
  • Communicating with authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members;
  • Verifying author identity, authorship information, ORCID iDs, institutional affiliations, and required declarations;
  • Managing ethical documentation, conflict of interest statements, funding information, data availability statements, and related publication records;
  • Assigning DOIs, preparing metadata, and supporting indexing, archiving, preservation, and scholarly discoverability;
  • Maintaining the integrity, transparency, and accountability of the editorial and publication process.

Confidentiality

Personal information submitted to the journal will not be used for purposes unrelated to the journal’s editorial and publishing activities. The journal does not sell, rent, or use personal information for commercial marketing purposes.

Manuscript files, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, and unpublished materials are treated as confidential. Access to such information is limited to authorised editors, editorial staff, reviewers, technical personnel, and service providers only where necessary for the operation of the journal and publication process.

Sharing of Information

Personal information may be shared only where necessary for legitimate editorial, technical, ethical, legal, indexing, archiving, metadata, DOI registration, publication, or preservation purposes. This may include manuscript management systems, DOI registration agencies, indexing and abstracting services, archiving platforms, similarity checking services, and technical service providers.

Any such sharing is limited to what is necessary for the relevant scholarly publishing purpose and is handled in accordance with applicable data protection principles.

Reviewer and Author Confidentiality

Health Sci. Q. operates a double-anonymised peer review process. Authors must not include identifying information in the blinded manuscript file. Reviewers must treat all manuscripts, supplementary files, reviewer forms, and editorial correspondence as confidential and must not share them with third parties or upload them to artificial intelligence tools or external platforms.

Data Protection and Ethical Compliance

The journal follows the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and applies appropriate confidentiality and data protection practices in editorial and publishing workflows.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that personal data, patient information, participant data, clinical images, survey responses, interview materials, and other sensitive information included in their manuscripts are collected, processed, anonymised, and reported in accordance with applicable ethical approvals, informed consent requirements, privacy standards, and data protection regulations.

Retention of Records

The journal may retain submission records, editorial correspondence, reviewer reports, publication metadata, ethics documentation, and related administrative records for editorial accountability, publication ethics, indexing, archiving, audit, and legal purposes.

Contact

For questions regarding privacy, confidentiality, or personal data protection, please contact: journals@holistence.com