Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
Healthcare Issues is committed to maintaining high standards of research integrity, publication ethics, transparency, confidentiality, and editorial independence. This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.
The journal's ethical framework is informed by the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, and relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines.
Research Integrity
Research submitted to the journal must be conducted and reported honestly, responsibly, transparently, and in accordance with applicable ethical, institutional, legal, and regulatory requirements.
The journal does not tolerate fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate image manipulation, duplicate publication, peer-review manipulation, or other forms of research or publication misconduct.
Human Participants
Research involving human participants must comply with applicable ethical and regulatory requirements. Where applicable, authors must provide information concerning ethics committee or institutional review board approval, reference number, or exemption.
Medical research involving human participants should follow the principles of the WMA Declaration of Helsinki, current official version.
Informed Consent
Appropriate informed consent must be obtained where required. For case reports, clinical photographs, identifiable patient information, interviews, or other potentially identifying material, authors must obtain appropriate consent for publication when required.
Authors must respect participant autonomy, privacy, confidentiality, and dignity.
Patient Privacy and Confidentiality
Identifying information should not be published unless it is essential and appropriate consent has been obtained. Authors should remove unnecessary identifying details from manuscripts, images, tables, and supplementary materials.
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials should be registered in an appropriate publicly accessible registry in accordance with recognized standards. Where applicable, authors should provide the registry name and registration number.
The journal follows the principles described in the ICMJE Clinical Trial Registration guidance.
Animal Research
Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international standards for animal welfare. Appropriate ethical approval or institutional authorization should be reported where applicable.
The journal encourages use of the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting animal research.
Human Biological Materials, Medical Records, and Health Data
Research involving human biological materials, medical records, databases, health information, or other sensitive data must comply with applicable ethical, legal, institutional, and privacy requirements.
Authors must describe relevant ethical approval, consent, anonymization, or data-protection procedures where applicable.
Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship should reflect substantial contributions to the work. All authors should approve the final manuscript and accept responsibility for their contributions.
Authorship and contributorship principles should follow the ICMJE Recommendations.
Changes in Authorship
Changes to authorship after submission require an appropriate explanation and confirmation from the affected authors. The journal may request institutional clarification when authors cannot reach agreement.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members must disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest that could influence or reasonably appear to influence scholarly judgment.
The journal follows the conflict-of-interest principles described in the ICMJE Recommendations.
Funding and Sponsorship
Authors must disclose financial support for the reported work and, where applicable, describe the role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and publication decisions.
Funding or sponsorship must not compromise authors' access to data or their ability to report findings independently.
Data Availability and Transparency
Authors should provide a Data Availability Statement where applicable. Data should be made available when ethically, legally, and practically possible, subject to privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, and other legitimate restrictions.
Reporting Guidelines
Authors are encouraged to use the reporting guideline appropriate to their study design. Relevant standards include:
- CONSORT for randomized trials
- STROBE for observational studies
- PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
- CARE for case reports
- ARRIVE for animal research
- STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies
- COREQ for qualitative research
- SRQR for qualitative and mixed-methods research
The complete reporting-guideline database is available through the EQUATOR Network.
Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication
Submitted and published material must be original. Plagiarism, substantial unattributed copying, duplicate publication, redundant publication, and inappropriate reuse of previously published material are not acceptable.
Suspected cases will be assessed according to the journal's procedures and relevant publication-ethics principles.
Research and Publication Misconduct
Concerns involving fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate image manipulation, authorship misconduct, undisclosed conflicts of interest, duplicate publication, peer-review manipulation, or other forms of misconduct may be investigated.
The journal may request explanations, supporting documentation, institutional information, or other evidence necessary to assess a concern.
Peer-Review Ethics
Healthcare Issues uses a single-blind peer-review process. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, disclose conflicts of interest, provide objective and constructive assessments, and must not use unpublished information for personal or professional advantage.
Editorial Independence
The Editor-in-Chief has overall responsibility for the journal's editorial direction, peer-review integrity, publication ethics, and final editorial decisions.
The Editor-in-Chief may delegate manuscript handling or individual decisions to qualified editors. Such delegation does not remove the Editor-in-Chief's overall responsibility.
Editorial decisions must be based on scholarly and ethical considerations and must not be influenced by commercial interests, publication charges, optional production services, nationality, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, or other irrelevant factors.
Confidentiality
Submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, unpublished data, and personal information obtained during the editorial process must be treated as confidential.
Artificial Intelligence
Authors, reviewers, and editors must use AI-assisted technologies responsibly and transparently.
AI systems cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, citations, and ethical compliance of AI-assisted content.
Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or unpublished information into AI systems where confidentiality cannot be assured.
The journal follows the principles in the ICMJE guidance on Artificial Intelligence in Publishing.
Corrections
When a published article contains a significant error that affects the accuracy or understanding of the published record, the journal may publish an appropriate correction or other editorial notice.
Retractions
An article may be retracted when there is reliable evidence that the findings are substantially unreliable, the article contains serious research or publication misconduct, or another circumstance requires removal or formal correction of the published record.
The journal may publish a retraction notice explaining the reason for the action and maintaining an appropriate connection with the original article.
Expressions of Concern
Where serious concerns exist but an investigation has not yet reached a definitive conclusion, the journal may publish an Expression of Concern to alert readers while the matter is being assessed.
Post-Publication Concerns
Readers, authors, reviewers, institutions, or other interested parties may raise concerns about published articles. The journal will assess credible concerns and may request information from authors, institutions, or other relevant parties.
Complaints and Appeals
Authors may submit legitimate appeals concerning editorial decisions or complaints concerning the publication process. Appeals should provide clear reasons and relevant evidence.
Publication-ethics complaints will be handled in accordance with applicable journal procedures and recognized publication-ethics principles, including the COPE Core Practices.
Optional Production and Technical Support
Jagua Publication may provide optional Production and Technical Support after manuscript acceptance at a charge of USD 50 per manuscript.
The service is optional and is available only to authors who request production or technical assistance. Authors who prepare their final files themselves are not required to pay this charge.
Payment for optional production or technical support has no influence on peer review, editorial assessment, acceptance, publication, or editorial decisions.
Ethical Framework and External Sources
Healthcare Issues follows principles informed by the following recognized sources: