Editorial Policies
All our journals will be guided by the COPE guiedelines, however the journals will continue to make independent decisions based on our existing policies and principles.
In all our journals, manuscript submissions should conform to the guidelines set forth in the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication,” available from www.icmje.org.
Authorship Criteria and Contributions and Authorship Form
Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. Authorship credit should be based only on (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; and (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published.
The authors also must certify that the manuscript represents valid work and that neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under their authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. Authors of manuscripts reporting original data or systematic reviews must provide an access to data statement from at least one named author, often the corresponding author If requested, authors should be prepared to provide the data and must cooperate fully in obtaining and providing the data on which the manuscript is based for examination by the editors or their assignees.
Role of the Corresponding Author
The corresponding author (or coauthor designee) will serve on behalf of all coauthors as the primary correspondent with the editorial office during the submission and review process. If the manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author will review an edited typescript and proof, make decisions regarding release of information in the manuscript to the news media, federal agencies, or both, and will be identified as the corresponding author in the published article. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript is complete. “Acknowledgment” is the general term for the list of contributions, disclosures, credits, and other information included at the end of the text of a manuscript but before the references. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the conflict of interest disclosures reported in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript are accurate, up-to-date, and consistent with the information provided for each author. The corresponding author must sign the Authorship Form confirming that all persons who have contributed substantially are identified as authors and that written permission from each author has been obtained.
Conflicts of Interest
All authors must make a formal statement indicating any potential conflict of interest that might constitute an embarrassment to any of the authors if it were not to be declared and were to emerge after publication. Such conflicts might include, but are not limited to, shareholding in or receipt of a grant or consultancy fee from a company whose product features in the submitted manuscript or which manufactures a competing product.
Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as none declared. All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. All relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding should be included on the title page of the manuscript with the heading “Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding:”. For example:
"Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding: A has received honoraria from Company Z. B is currently receiving a grant (#12345) from Organization Y, and is on the speaker’s bureau for Organization X – the CME organizers for Company A. For the remaining authors none were declared."
Ethical Issues
Provide clear statement on the ethical issues if clinical or animal research has been conducted if applied. Institutional review board (IRB) approvals are required in Material amd Methods section for all submitted research articles.
Statistics
Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Statistical analysis should be conducted in accordance with the guidelines on reporting statistical data in medical journals [Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93.; and Lang T, Altman D. Basic statistical reporting for articles published in clinical medical journals: the SAMPL Guidelines. In: Smart P, Maisonneuve H, Polderman A (editors). Science Editors’ Handbook, European Association of Science Editors, 2013.]. The software used for statistical analysis must be described. Data must be expressed as mean ± standard deviation when parametric tests are used to compare continuous variables. For non-parametric tests, data must be expressed as median (minimum-maximum) or percentiles (25th and 75th percentiles). In advanced and complex statistical analyses, relative risk (RR), odds ratio (OR) and hazard ratio (HR) must be supported by confidence intervals and P-values. The outcomes of statistical analyses and interpretation of the results must be in evidence-based scientific language [Editors of Heart Group journals. Statement on matching language to the type of evidence used in describing outcomes data.]. Other resources on "statistical analysis of medical data" can also be used for guidance.
Guide for structure of articles
Original Investigations and Reviews should be presented according to the guidelines: randomized study – CONSORT, observational study – STROBE, study on diagnostic accuracy – STARD, systematic reviews and meta-analysis PRISMA, animal experimental studies – ARRIVE, nonrandomized behavioural and public health intervention studies – TREND.
Informed consent policy
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken.
Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers, biometrical characteristics, and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent/guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable or legal representative) gave written informed consent for publication. Under certain circumstances consent is not required as long as information is anonymized and the submission does not include images that may identify the person. Informed consent for publication should be obtained if there is any doubt.
Advertising policy
No paid advertisements are permitted in webpages with scientific articles.
The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern
Should factual amendments be made post-production, these are first assessed whether they are simple errors and, if so, approved by the editorial team. Should, in their view, an adjustment be made, it is then sent on to production for amendment. Revisions to errors are then checked for accuracy by the editorial team and with those raising the issue. The amended version of the issue is then re uploaded and will carry an erratum signifying to the reader the change and the date of the change.
In all other cases Eurohealth abides by WHO’s policies on retraction. Retraction is a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to publications that contain flawed or erroneous data such that their findings cannot be relied upon. Unreliable data may result from honest error (such as miscalculation or experimental error) or from scientific misconduct (such as data fabrication, data falsification, failure to disclose conflicts of interest and plagiarism). Retractions are also used to alert readers to cases of unethical research. Here WHO seeks to align with international approaches on retraction in scientific publishing, such as those produced by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Each situation requires individual assessment by the editorial team and appropriate management so that the relevant facts and circumstances are established. Then an expression of concern relating to the work, pending the outcome of the investigation, may be published. If the investigation establishes, or if the editorial team has reasonable grounds to consider, that the content of the publication is seriously flawed or misleading, or otherwise compromised by scientific misconduct, then the publication would be retracted and a statement of retraction published. If the concerns are unproven or unfounded, a statement to this effect would be published. Expressions of concern and statements of retraction should be prominently labelled and include the title of the original publication. The retraction statement should explain why the publication is being retracted and include a complete reference to that publication. Ideally, the retraction statement should be linked to the original publication and the retracted publication should be labelled as retracted in all its forms and in all languages in which it has been published.