Ethics Policy

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Health Sciences Quarterly (Health Sci. Q.) is committed to upholding high ethical standards in all stages of manuscript submission, editorial evaluation, peer review, publication, correction, and archiving, particularly given its focus on health and medical sciences. The journal bases its policies and practices on the Core Practices established by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and follows the recommendations of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) where applicable.

These principles define the responsibilities and ethical rules that all stakeholders involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher, must follow. The journal expects all submitted manuscripts to comply with standards of research integrity, transparency, accountability, originality, ethical approval, informed consent, data accuracy, and participant privacy.

1. Responsibilities of Authors

Originality and Attribution: Authors must ensure that the work they submit is original and that any ideas, text, data, images, tables, figures, instruments, scales, or other materials taken from another source are properly cited and, where necessary, used with permission.

Originality and Duplicate Submission: Manuscripts submitted to Health Sci. Q. must not have been published previously and must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Duplicate submission, redundant publication, inappropriate text recycling, and salami slicing are not acceptable.

Authorship and Author Contribution: All listed authors must have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the study in accordance with ICMJE authorship criteria. Author contributions must be clearly reported in the Title Page / Cover Page. Where applicable, authors should use the CRediT contributor roles, including Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project Administration, and Funding Acquisition.

Authorship Integrity: Gift authorship, guest authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship, and undisclosed writing assistance are not acceptable. All authors must approve the submitted version of the manuscript, the order of authors, the author contribution statement, and any subsequent changes to authorship.

Human and Animal Rights: For research involving human participants, patients, personal data, clinical interventions, surveys, interviews, observations, biological material, images, or sensitive health data, authors must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) where required. Informed consent must be obtained from participants where applicable. Animal studies must follow internationally recognised guidelines, such as ARRIVE where applicable, and must have relevant ethical approval.

Ethics Committee Approval Document: If the study requires ethics committee approval, authors must upload the ethics committee approval document as an additional file during submission. The name of the ethics committee, approval date, and approval/decision number must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page. These details must not appear in the blinded manuscript file if they reveal author or institution identity.

Clinical Trial Registration: Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible clinical trial registry where applicable. The registry name and registration number must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page.

Data Reliability: Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, completeness, and reliability of the data they submit. Data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, selective reporting, and misleading presentation of results are considered serious forms of misconduct.

Data Availability: Authors must provide a Data Availability Statement in the Title Page / Cover Page. Data may be made publicly available, available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, restricted due to ethical/privacy reasons, or declared not applicable. Patient privacy, participant confidentiality, legal restrictions, and ethical limitations must always be respected.

Conflict of Interest: Authors must declare any financial, professional, institutional, or personal conflicts of interest that may be perceived as influencing the submitted work. If there is no conflict of interest, this must also be stated clearly in the Title Page / Cover Page.

Funding: All sources of financial support, including grants, institutional funding, sponsor support, project numbers, or funder names, must be disclosed in the Title Page / Cover Page. If the study received no external funding, authors must state this explicitly.

Permissions and Third-Party Material: Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for any copyrighted figures, tables, images, photographs, scales, questionnaires, instruments, or other third-party content reproduced or adapted in the manuscript.

Patient and Participant Privacy: Authors must ensure that identifying information has been removed or anonymised unless explicit consent for disclosure has been obtained. Patient images, case details, clinical information, or participant data must be presented in a way that protects privacy and confidentiality.

Artificial Intelligence Use: Authors must disclose any use of artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, language editing, formatting, coding, data analysis support, image generation, or other technical assistance. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, ethical compliance, and scientific content of the manuscript.

2. Required Author Declarations and Submission Files

To support transparency, ethical compliance, and double-anonymised peer review, authors must submit the following files:

• Blinded Manuscript File: The main manuscript file must be fully anonymised. It must not include author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, e-mail addresses, acknowledgements, funding details, ethics committee names or approval numbers, institutional identifiers, project numbers, or any other information that may reveal the identity of the authors.
• Title Page / Cover Page: This file must include the manuscript title, author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, e-mail addresses, corresponding author details, author contributions, conflict of interest statement, funding statement, ethics committee approval statement, informed consent statement, animal research ethics statement where applicable, clinical trial registration where applicable, data availability statement, acknowledgements, artificial intelligence use statement, originality and duplicate submission statement, permissions statement, and patient/participant privacy statement.
• Cover Letter: Authors must submit a cover letter addressed to the Editor. The cover letter should confirm that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, is not under consideration elsewhere, complies with the journal’s ethical and publication policies, and falls within the scope of Health Sciences Quarterly.
• Ethics Committee Approval Document: For studies involving human participants, patients, personal data, clinical interventions, biological material, surveys, interviews, observations, experimental procedures, or animal subjects, authors must upload the ethics committee approval document as an additional file when required.

The journal does not require a separate copyright transfer form. Authors retain copyright and publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Required declarations must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page and, where appropriate, in the Cover Letter.

3. Anonymisation and Double-Anonymised Review

Health Sci. Q. operates a double-anonymised peer review process. Authors must ensure that the blinded manuscript file does not contain information that reveals author identity, institutional affiliation, funder identity, project number, ethics committee name, approval number, acknowledgements, or any other identifying details.

In the blinded manuscript file, authors may use anonymised statements such as:

• Ethics approval was obtained for this study. Details are provided in the Title Page.
• This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethics approval details are provided in the Title Page.
• Funding information is provided in the Title Page.

4. Editors' Responsibilities and Editorial Roles

4.1 General Principles

Impartiality: Editorial decisions are based solely on academic merit, originality, methodological quality, ethical compliance, scientific validity, reviewer reports, and relevance to the journal's scope.

Independence from Fees: Payment of the article submission fee does not influence editorial or peer-review decisions and does not guarantee acceptance.

Confidentiality: All manuscript information, reviewer identities, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, and unpublished materials are kept strictly confidential.

Conflict of Interest: Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a potential conflict of interest. In such cases, the manuscript must be assigned to another qualified editor.

Ethical Oversight: Editors are responsible for responding to allegations of research misconduct, publication misconduct, plagiarism, data manipulation, authorship disputes, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and ethical concerns in accordance with COPE guidance.

4.2 Editorial Roles and Responsibilities

Editor-in-Chief

• Determines the scope, editorial policy, and strategic direction of the journal.
• Oversees the peer review process and makes final publication decisions.
• Ensures adherence to ethical standards and handles allegations of misconduct.
• Maintains editorial independence and transparency in publication decisions.

Managing Editor

• Coordinates daily editorial operations and communication.
• Performs initial technical, formatting, ethical, and submission file checks.
• Ensures that required author declarations and submission files are complete.
• Manages the publication schedule and production process.

Section Editors / Editorial Board Members

• Manage the peer review process for manuscripts in their area of expertise.
• Select appropriate reviewers and evaluate reviewer reports.
• Provide expert advice on journal policies and specific submissions.
• Support the journal’s ethical, scientific, and editorial standards.

5. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Scientific Rigour: Reviewers should provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and respectful evaluations. Their comments should help editors make informed decisions and help authors improve the quality of their work.

Confidentiality: Manuscripts are confidential documents and must not be shared, discussed, copied, distributed, or used for personal advantage. Reviewers must not disclose unpublished information obtained through peer review.

Conflict of Interest: Reviewers must decline to review a manuscript if they have any conflict of interest with the authors, institutions, funders, research topic, or competing work.

Use of Artificial Intelligence by Reviewers: Reviewers must not upload manuscripts or confidential review materials to artificial intelligence tools or third-party platforms, as this may violate confidentiality, data protection, and intellectual property obligations.

Timeliness: Reviews should be completed within the agreed timeframe. Reviewers who are unable to complete the review on time should inform the editorial office promptly.

6. Plagiarism, Redundant Publication and Research Misconduct

Health Sci. Q. has a zero-tolerance policy toward plagiarism and publication misconduct. All submissions are screened using similarity detection software such as iThenticate. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, redundant publication, inappropriate text recycling, salami slicing, data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, citation manipulation, and undisclosed conflicts of interest are not acceptable.

Manuscripts with substantiated ethical violations may be rejected, returned to authors for clarification, corrected, retracted, or subject to further editorial action in accordance with COPE guidelines.

7. Data Availability and Research Integrity

Authors are responsible for the reliability, accuracy, completeness, and transparency of the data used in their research. Editors and reviewers may request raw data, supplementary materials, ethics documentation, or methodological clarification when necessary.

Authors are encouraged to share research data in public repositories where appropriate. However, data sharing must not compromise patient privacy, participant confidentiality, legal obligations, institutional restrictions, or ethical requirements. A Data Availability Statement must be included in the Title Page / Cover Page for all submissions.

8. Human Participants, Informed Consent and Animal Research

Studies involving human participants, patients, clinical data, surveys, interviews, observations, biological material, personal data, images, or sensitive health information must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and must obtain appropriate ethics committee or Institutional Review Board approval where required.

Informed consent must be obtained from participants where applicable. If informed consent is waived by an ethics committee due to retrospective, anonymised, or minimal-risk study design, this must be clearly stated in the Title Page / Cover Page.

Studies involving animals must comply with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines for the care and use of animals in research. Animal research ethics approval details must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page, and the relevant approval document must be uploaded where required.

9. Correction, Expression of Concern and Retraction Policy

Correction: Corrections, errata, or corrigenda may be issued for errors that do not invalidate the scientific findings of a published article.

Expression of Concern: An expression of concern may be issued when serious questions arise about the integrity or reliability of a published article, but the investigation is incomplete or inconclusive.

Retraction: Retractions may be issued in cases of serious misconduct or unreliable findings, including data fabrication, data falsification, plagiarism, unethical research, duplicate publication, serious authorship misconduct, or failure to disclose major conflicts of interest. Retractions are handled in accordance with COPE guidelines.

10. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Authors must disclose any use of artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, language editing, formatting, coding, data analysis support, image generation, or other technical assistance. AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy, or ethical compliance of the work.

The AI use statement must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page and must not compromise the anonymisation of the blinded manuscript file. Authors are responsible for reviewing, verifying, and approving all AI-assisted outputs.

Editorial decisions are made by editors and reviewers. Artificial intelligence tools are not used as a substitute for editorial judgement or independent peer review.

11. Publisher’s Responsibilities

The publisher is responsible for supporting editorial independence, ensuring the technical integrity of the publication platform, maintaining long-term access to published content, supporting archiving and preservation, and acting in accordance with ethical publishing standards. The publisher does not interfere with editorial decisions.

12. Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, or other stakeholders may submit complaints or appeals concerning editorial decisions, peer review, publication ethics, corrections, retractions, or allegations of misconduct. Complaints and appeals are handled fairly, confidentially, and in accordance with COPE guidance. The journal may request supporting documents or additional explanations where necessary.