Publication Policy

Health Sciences Quarterly (Health Sci. Q.) is an international, double-anonymised, peer-reviewed, open-access journal. The journal accepts submissions exclusively in English and publishes four issues per year.

Aim and Scope

The journal publishes high-quality theoretical, empirical, clinical, experimental, and interdisciplinary research in the health sciences. Please read the About / Focus and Scope page for more information on the thematic scope of the journal.

Article Types, Language and Publication Frequency

• The journal accepts and publishes manuscripts only in English.
• Publication Frequency: Health Sciences Quarterly is published quarterly, four times a year.
• The journal considers the following manuscript types, provided that they fall within the journal’s aims and scope: Original Article, Review Article, Case Report, Study Protocol, and Letter to the Editor.

Errata are published when necessary to correct errors in previously published articles and are handled in accordance with the journal’s corrections and publication ethics policies.

Required Submission Files and Author Declarations

Authors are required to submit the following files during manuscript submission:

• 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, full 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.

Author Contribution Statement

Author contributions must be reported in the Title Page / Cover Page. Where applicable, authors should use the CRediT contributor roles:

• Conceptualization
• Methodology
• Software
• Validation
• Formal Analysis
• Investigation
• Resources
• Data Curation
• Writing – Original Draft
• Writing – Review & Editing
• Visualization
• Supervision
• Project Administration
• Funding Acquisition

Example: Conceptualization: A.A. and B.B.; Methodology: A.A.; Formal Analysis: C.C.; Writing – Original Draft: A.A.; Writing – Review & Editing: A.A., B.B. and C.C.; Supervision: B.B.

Declarations Required in the Title Page / Cover Page

The following declarations must be included in the Title Page / Cover Page. If a declaration is not applicable, authors must state “Not applicable” rather than leaving the section blank.

1. Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors must disclose all financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationships that may be perceived to influence the submitted work.

Example: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

2. Funding Statement

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support, including grant numbers, project numbers, institutional funding, or sponsor names.

Example: This research received no external funding.

Example: This study was supported by [Funder Name] under grant/project number [XXX].

3. Ethics Committee Approval Statement

For studies requiring ethics approval, authors must provide the name of the ethics committee, approval date, and approval/decision number in the Title Page / Cover Page. A copy of the ethics committee approval document must be uploaded as an additional file when required.

Example: This study was approved by [Name of Ethics Committee] on [Date] with decision/approval number [Number].

Example: Ethics committee approval was not required because the study did not involve human participants, animal subjects, identifiable personal data, clinical intervention, biological material, or sensitive health data.

4. Human Participants and Informed Consent Statement

For studies involving human participants, patients, surveys, interviews, observations, clinical data, images, or identifiable information, authors must provide an informed consent statement.

Example: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Example: Informed consent was waived by the ethics committee due to the retrospective/anonymised nature of the study.

5. Animal Research Ethics Statement

For studies involving animals, authors must provide the name of the approving ethics committee, approval date, approval number, and the relevant institutional, national, or international guidelines followed.

Example: All procedures involving animals were approved by [Name of Ethics Committee] on [Date] with approval number [Number] and were conducted in accordance with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines.

Example: Not applicable. This study did not involve animal subjects.

6. Clinical Trial Registration Statement

Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible clinical trial registry. The registry name and registration number must be provided.

Example: This clinical trial was registered at [Registry Name] with registration number [Number].

7. Data Availability Statement

Authors must state whether the data supporting the findings of the study are publicly available, available upon reasonable request, restricted due to ethical/privacy reasons, or not applicable.

Example: The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Example: The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.

8. Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements must be provided only in the Title Page / Cover Page and must not appear in the blinded manuscript file.

Example: The authors thank [Name/Institution] for [type of support].

Example: Acknowledgements: None.

9. Artificial Intelligence Use Statement

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

Example: The authors used [tool name] for language editing and formatting support. The authors reviewed and edited all AI-assisted outputs and take full responsibility for the content of the manuscript.

Example: The authors declare that no artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.

10. Originality and Duplicate Submission Statement

Authors must declare that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Example: The authors declare that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

11. Permissions Statement

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

Example: The authors confirm that permission has been obtained for all copyrighted material, figures, tables, images, scales, or instruments reproduced or adapted in the manuscript.

Example: Permissions: Not applicable.

12. Patient/Participant Privacy Statement

Authors must confirm that patient or participant privacy has been protected and that identifying information has been removed or anonymised unless explicit consent for disclosure has been obtained.

Example: The authors confirm that all identifying information has been removed or anonymised and that patient/participant privacy has been protected.

Anonymisation Requirements for Double-Anonymised Review

To protect the integrity of double-anonymised peer review, ethics committee approval details, funding information, acknowledgements, author contributions, conflict of interest statements, project numbers, institutional identifiers, and other potentially identifying information must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page and must not appear in the blinded manuscript file.

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.

Double-Anonymised Peer Review Policy

All submissions undergo an initial editorial check to determine whether they comply with the journal’s guidelines, ethical standards, scope, and quality requirements. Manuscripts that pass the initial editorial check are evaluated through double-anonymised peer review by at least two independent reviewers.

The review process is conducted confidentially. Editors and reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest and withdraw from the evaluation process when necessary. Editorial decisions are based on reviewer reports, academic merit, originality, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.

Article Submission Fee and Publication Charges

Health Sciences Quarterly charges a one-time article submission fee of 150 USD after preliminary editorial suitability assessment. Apart from this submission fee, the journal does not charge any article processing charge, acceptance fee, publication fee, page fee, colour fee, production fee, archiving fee, or post-acceptance fee.

Payment of the submission fee does not guarantee acceptance and does not influence editorial or peer-review decisions. All manuscripts are evaluated solely on academic merit, originality, methodological quality, ethical compliance, reviewer reports, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.

Open Access Model

Health Sci. Q. provides immediate open access to all published content. All articles are made freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication. Please see Copyright & Licensing and Open Access Policy for information on licensing and reuse rights.

Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows others to share and adapt the work, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors and source. Further information is available on the Copyright & Licensing page.

Ethical Standards in Human and Animal Research

Health Sci. Q. adheres to high ethical standards for medical and health research. Manuscripts involving human participants, patients, personal data, clinical interventions, surveys, interviews, observations, biological material, or sensitive health data must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have appropriate ethics committee or Institutional Review Board approval where required.

Studies involving animal subjects must comply with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines for the care and use of animals in research. Authors must provide animal research ethics approval details and upload the relevant approval document when required.

If ethics approval, informed consent, animal research approval, or clinical trial registration is required, the relevant declaration must be included in the Title Page / Cover Page. Supporting approval documents must be uploaded as additional files where applicable.

Plagiarism and Similarity Check

All submissions are checked for similarity using plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, redundant publication, data fabrication, data falsification, and inappropriate text recycling are not acceptable and may result in rejection or further editorial action in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Please see the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement for further details.

Data Availability and Research Integrity

• Authors are responsible for the accuracy, completeness, integrity, and reliability of the data used in their study.
• Editors or reviewers may request raw data, supplementary material, ethics documentation, or methodological clarification when necessary.
• Authors are encouraged to deposit data in open repositories where appropriate, with adequate documentation and citation, while protecting patient privacy, participant confidentiality, and legal or ethical restrictions.
• A Data Availability Statement must be included in the Title Page / Cover Page for all submissions.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern and Retractions

Minor errors may be corrected through errata or corrigenda. In cases involving serious ethical concerns, unreliable findings, data fabrication, plagiarism, duplicate publication, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other forms of publication misconduct, the journal may issue an expression of concern or retract the article in accordance with COPE guidelines.

For further information, please read the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationships that may be perceived to influence the evaluation, interpretation, or publication of a manuscript. Conflict of interest statements must be provided in the Title Page / Cover Page.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

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 are fully responsible for all AI-assisted outputs, including the accuracy, originality, integrity, ethical compliance, and scientific content of the manuscript.

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

Indexing and Archiving

The journal ensures long-term digital preservation through archiving and preservation systems such as LOCKSS and the PKP Preservation Network. Please see the Archiving Policy page for further information.

Indexing: Please see the Indexing & Abstracting page for the most recent list of abstracting, indexing, discovery platforms, and catalogues.

Standards and Compliance

The journal follows the COPE Core Practices and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) where applicable. Health Sciences Quarterly is committed to transparency, integrity, accountability, and ethical conduct in all stages of manuscript submission, editorial evaluation, peer review, publication, correction, and archiving.

This page provides an overview of the general editorial and publication policies of Health Sciences Quarterly. Please read the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement for the complete ethical policy framework.