Journal of Social Behavior and Community Health
For Authors
Ethical Considration

Ethical Consideration

 | Post date: 2018/01/27 | 

Ethics of JSBCH Publishing
  Details of formal ethical approval should be stated in the main body of the article. If authors were not required to obtain ethical approval (as is the case in some countries) or unable to obtain it (as sometimes occurs in resource-poor settings), they should explain the reason. Please anonymize this information in the manuscript, and only if requested give the information during submission. The procedures for securing informed consent should be provided.
  Complying with medical ethics, anonymity, and confidentiality are among the points to be considered. In this regard, protecting the human subjects according to Helsinki Declaration should be taken in to consideration and the ethics committee confirmation letter of the university must be attached to the article. Medical research studies involving human subjects must generally be accepted in terms of scientific principles and a letter of consent from parents or legal caretakers is necessary.
  According to ICMJE website "A Clinical Trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes". Authors who conducted studies in this scope should register their trial in one of the ICMJE-recognized trial registries. Therefore, the number of clinical trial registration should be attached to submitted paper.

  Journal of Social Behavior and Community Health editor may seek advice about submitted papers on any aspect of a paper that raises concerns, for example, ethical issues or issues of data or materials access. It is important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, etc. All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework.


Ethics of studies involving humans and animals
  The research that involves human beings and animals must adhere to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html).
  All research participants should be informed about the aims of the study and any possible side effects of the drugs and intervention. Written informed consent under protocols approved by an institutional or local review board or approved animal protocols are essential if the research involves human or animal subjects, respectively. Also, the welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists). This information should be stated in the manuscript and the protocol number or exempt status of approved protocols should be stated in the manuscript at the time of submission for review. Ethical considerations must be clearly addressed in the Methods section. Also the name of the appropriate institutional review board that approved the project should be mentioned. The Journal reserves the right to request the related documents.
  The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed and attention should be paid to the principles of participants' anonymity and information confidentiality, and those should be clearly mentioned in the manuscript.

Authorship and Author’s Responsibility
  The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest statements, are properly completed. The corresponding author should respond to editorial queries throughout the submission and peer review process in a timely manner, and should cooperate with any requests from the journal after publication.

  One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

  In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

Clinical Trial Registration
 In a clinical trial, According to the International Committee of Medical journal Editors (ICMJE), participants receive specific interventions according to the research plan or protocol created by the investigators. These interventions may be medical products, such as drugs or devices; procedures; or changes to participants' behavior, such as diet. Clinical trials may compare a new medical approach to a standard one that is already available, to a placebo that contains no active ingredients, or to no intervention. Some clinical trials compare interventions that are already available to each other. The investigators try to determine the safety and efficacy of the intervention by measuring certain outcomes in the participants. Authors of clinical trials are required to prospectively register their trial with one of the ICMJE-recognized trial registries. The registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry must be mentioned at the end of the abstract.
 All of Iranian Clinical Trials must be registered in Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (www.IRCT.ir), in order to be considered for publication. The clinical trials performed abroad, could be considered for publication, if they register in a registration site approved by W.H.O. such as:

Authorship Criteria and Contributions
 Authors' names should be mentioned according to the defined criteria by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Based on the ICMJE recommendations, authors (or one of them) should have all the following criteria: 1) Have a substantial contribution in at least one of the following activities: a) presenting the research conception or designing the study, b) collecting the data, c) analyzing and interpreting; 2) Have a role in drafting the study or revising it critically for important intellectual scientific content; 3) Study and approve the final version to be published; 4) Agree to be accountable for the correctness and accuracy of all aspects of the study; 5) The journal avoids accepting the articles with moral plagiarism (scientific and literary) and fraud according to the existing standards. The contents of the article should not be a copy of similar studies. If the authors use all or part of the published or unpublished materials or ideas of someone else, they must cite references properly or take permission in necessary cases. Useful guidelines for authors can be found on the ICMJE website. In cases of authorship disputes that can not be resolved between the authors, the editors reserve the right to refer the dispute to the institutes involved for resolution. Useful guidelines for researchers on how to avoid authorship disputes can be found on the COPE website. Enter author's all contributions in the submission system during submission.
 Contributions will be published in the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions in the study. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and it is expected that all authors, prior to this time, will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed upon their individual contributions. The contributions of all authors must be described using the CRediT Taxonomy of author's roles.

Addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in an accepted manuscript’s authorship
 Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue
Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include:
a) The reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged.
b) Written confirmation (email, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded on by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above.
Note that:

  • Journal managers will inform Editors of any such requests
  • Publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed
 After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue
Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
 

Informed consent
  For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants. For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to individual participants, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from the participants. A statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers 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 scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. The final decision on whether consent to publish is required lies with the Editor.

 

Article Withdrawal

Withdrawing a paper during peer-review or after acceptance, but before publication, is an uncommon event. It is not considered good scientific practice and must be done only in exceptional cases. Withdrawal or removal of articles is strongly discouraged. Some authors request withdrawal a manuscript from the publication process after submission. In some instances the request for withdrawal is made within a few days after submission, however, many times the request is made very late, when the manuscript is only a few days away from publication in the journal. Withdrawing manuscripts from publication wastes the valuable resources and tremendous amount of effort made in processing the manuscripts by the editors, reviewers and the editorial staff. Decide on the number of authors, order of authors and authorship contributions of a paper before submitting the manuscript. Ideally these should be decided even before beginning to write the manuscript. According to the policy of our journal, it is not possible to withdraw the articles after the initial review by the referees.

 

Cases that withdrawals are possible:

The practice of removal, deletion, or obscuring of an article or part of an article should be limited to circumstances such as:

  • Legal infringements, defamation, or other legal limitations.

  • False or inaccurate data, especially those that if acted upon could pose a serious health risk.

Even in these circumstances, a retraction statement must still be published to ensure that bibliographic information about the removed article is retained for the scientific record, and an explanation must be given about the circumstances of removal or withdrawal.

 

To avoid withdrawal of a manuscript:

To avoid withdrawal of a manuscript, corresponding author addresses the following issues before submitting the manuscript for JSBCH publication:

  • Confirm that the facts and data included in the manuscript are authors’ own work; authors are permitted by departmental and/or institutional policy to use the materials and resources as they have been used in the study; and if data and facts from any other person or sources are used, appropriate written permissions have been obtained.

  • Confirm that all authors agree to the presentation and interpretation of the facts and data given in the manuscript. In case of any differences of opinion, address the concerns of all the authors before submitting the manuscript for JSBCH publication.

  • Submit the manuscript to only one time for publication. Do not simultaneously submit the manuscript to more time.

  • Before submitting the manuscript for publication, inform all the authors, the name of the journal to which the manuscript is being submitted and give them a copy of the final manuscript.

  • Manuscripts may be withdrawn at any stage of review and publication process by submitting a request to the publication department. Manuscript withdrawal will be permitted after submission only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons.

  • Decide on the number of authors, order of authors and authorship contributions of a paper before submitting the manuscript. Ideally these should be decided even before beginning to write the manuscript.

  • Confirm that all the authors agree on the specific journal to submit the manuscript for publication. If there are any disagreements about selection of the journal, find a solution which is agreeable to all authors before submitting the manuscript for publication.

  • If the authors do not reply to communication from the editorial office, even after multiple reminders, at any stage of the JSBCH publication process; JSBCH holds all rights to disclose the conduct of the authors and content of the manuscript without further approval from the authors, and cannot be held responsible for the consequences arising from it.

Are there penalties for withdrawal? 

  • Since there are many legitimate reasons to withdraw a paper, the consequences for doing so are usually minimal if done quickly. However, withdrawal after acceptance or during peer review can be a big problem, especially if the reasons for withdrawal are suspicious. For example, an author might submit to multiple journals and withdraw at the last minute from journals with a lower impact factor. This guarantees them a spot in only the most prestigious journal that accepts their manuscript. In such cases, deposits and fees may not be returned, and the journal may ask that the authors do not submit to the journal again. This, in turn, can earn authors a bad reputation. Regardless of the reason, it is best to ensure that the journal to which you are submitting is the right fit for all the authors to circumvent the need for withdrawal in the first place. Remember: the publishing process requires a great deal of time and labor and consuming those resources without good cause raises ethical concerns.

Author Misconduct

  JSBCH will follow the COPE guidelines to deal with any potential misconduct. Scientific misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism with the intent to deceive by the authors. Honest error or differences in interpretation are not considered misconduct. Breaches of publication ethics include but are not limited to: failure to reveal financial conflicts of interest; omitting a deserving author or adding a noncontributing author; misrepresenting publication status in the reference list; self-plagiarism without attribution; duplicate or redundant publication; and inclusion of one or more sentences verbatim from another source without citing the original source and putting the sentence(s) in quotation marks.
  JSBCH takes seriously its responsibility to ensure scientific integrity and will pursue any allegations of misconduct. The JSBCH editors adhere to the COPE Code of Conduct, which can be found at http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct. When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct, the resolving process will be followed by guidelines provided by the "Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)". The complete guidelines appear on COPE website: http://www.publicationethics.org.uk. Charges of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, duplicate, and redundant publication will be managed according to COPE guidelines. JSBCH uses plagiarism checker software to verify the originality of written works.
  If the Scientific Integrity Panel concludes there is a reasonable possibility of misconduct, they will consider any of the following options, dependent upon the apparent magnitude of the misconduct. Responses may be applied separately or combined, and their implementation will depend on the circumstances of the case as well as the responses of the participating parties and institutions. The following options are ranked in approximate order of severity:

  • A letter of explanation (and education) sent only to the person(s) against whom the complaint is made, where there appears to be a genuine and innocent misunderstanding of principles or procedure.

  • A letter of reprimand to the person(s) against whom the complaint is made, warning of the consequences of future such instances, where the misunderstanding appears to be not entirely innocent.

  • A letter of reprimand to all co-authors on the paper informing them of the findings of the Panel and warning of the consequences of future such instances.

  • A formal letter as above, including a written request to the supervising institution(s) that an investigation be carried out and the findings of that inquiry be reported in writing to the journal.

  • Publication of a notice of redundant or duplicate publication or plagiarism, if appropriate and unequivocally documented. Such publication will not require approval of authors, and may also be reported to their institution and, if appropriate, funding agency.

  • Formal withdrawal or retraction of the paper from the scientific literature, published in the journal.

Note: If the author wants to submit his/her manuscript for publication in another periodical, he/she should first withdraw his/her paper from JSBCH journal. For that, author should mail the Editor-in-chief or the handling editor about the withdrawal decision along-with proper reasons for the same. Once he/she receive the response, he/she is free to communicate it anywhere else.


Data Fabrication
 Fabrication is the construction and/or addition of data, observations, or characterizations that never occurred in the gathering of data or running of experiments. Fabrication can occur when “filling out” the rest of experiment runs, for example. JSBCH will ask the author(s) to provide the raw data for further investigations if necessary.

Data Falsification
 Manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc. In the initial process of peer review, JSBCH tries to consider this issue and act accordingly.
 

Originality and Duplicate Publication
 Manuscripts under review or published by other journals will not be accepted for publication in this journal
 To avoid duplication, consider the points established by COPE website.
a) Author(s) should clarify that they has not been submitted the manuscript in more than one journal.
b) Author(s) should not publish the submitted manuscript in two different languages (one in a Persian medical journal and the other in another language (English, French, German, etc.), simultaneously.
c) Author(s) should not publish the submitted manuscript in JSBCH elsewhere previously as part or full, unless some new results would be considered.
d) Authors should not split up the results of a work to publish them in more than one journal (Salami-Publishing).
  Author(s) should enclose a written undertaking along with manuscript, confirming the above mentioned points with signature of the corresponding author(s).
 

Plagiarism
  Plagiarism is not acceptable in JSBCH submissions. Plagiarized content will not be considered for publication. If plagiarism is identified, JSBCH will follow the COPE guidelines.

  Plagiarism includes:

  • Directly copying text from other sources without attribution;
  • Copying ideas, images, or data from other sources without attribution;
  • Reusing text from your own previous publications without attribution or agreement of the editor (read the COPE guidelines on text recycling);

  If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, JSBCH may perform a correction or retract the paper, as appropriate. JSBCH reserves the right to inform authors' institutions about plagiarism detected either before or after publication. The journal uses plagiarism detection software to evaluate the originality of each manuscript before publication.
  JSBCH expects that editors and reviewers will be vigilant in their evaluation of JSBCH submissions and will notify the journal about any plagiarism identified. Authors should avoid self-plagiarism. It means they do not use the previous own published materials without acknowledgment of the source.

ORCID
  JSBCH mandates ORCID iDs for the first and corresponding authors since 2018. Therefore, authors and reviewers are strongly recommended to also connect their Scholar One accounts to ORCID.

Conflicts of Interest
  According to ICMJE guidelines, a conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer or editor has personal or financial relationships that influence (bias) inappropriately his/her action (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from those with negligible potential to those with great potential to influence judgment, and not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. The potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.
  Authors must make sure that they have declared any actual or potential conflicts of interest in their manuscript when submitting their work.
  The corresponding author is responsible for confirming with the co-authors whether they have any conflicts to be declared or not.

Copyright Policy

  JSBCH is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License  which allows users to read, copy, distribute, and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited properly.The license ensures that the article will be available as widely as possible and that the article can be included in any scientific archive.
:Impoetant Note While submitting your manuscript please bear in mind to upload Authorship Statement and Copyright Form as well (this form must be completed and signed by corresponding author).


Complaints Procedure
  This procedure is about the complaints about the publishing policies, procedures and actions of publishing and editorial staff and Editors-in-Chief of journals from JSBCH.
  JSBCH infers that the complainants can not simply disagreeing with a decision that JSBCH has made or has published unless there has been a failure of process - for example, a long delay or a rude response - or a severe misjudgment.
  JSBCH welcomes complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and JSBCH aims to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively. Please send your complaint with journal title, vol. no., issue no., paper title and page number to sbrh.ssugmail.com, sbrhssu.ac.ir.
 
How to Make a Complaint

  • The best way to contact us is by email (sbrh.ssugmail.com, sbrhssu.ac.ir). Complaints should clearly contain the topic, person, or event related to the JSBCH.
  • Whenever possible, complaints will be processed by the relevant member of the Editorial Board. If that person cannot deal with the complaint, it will be referred to the Editorial Board of JSBCH.
  • Complaints that are not under the control of the JSBCH Editorial Board will be sent to School of Public Health Research Ethic Committee. Finally, if complaints are not resolved in the School committee, it will be sent to Shahid Sadoughi University Research Ethics Committee.
  • If possible, a full response will be made within four weeks. If this is not possible, an interim response will be given within four weeks. Further, interim responses will be provided until the complaint is resolved.
  • If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints should be sent to the chancellor of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, whose decision ends the procedure.
  • If a complainant remains unhappy after the chancellor’s final decision, he/she may complain to The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The Committee on Publication Ethics publishes a code of practice for editors of scientific, technical, and medical journals http://www.publicationethics.org. It will consider complaints when a journal cannot reach an agreement through its own procedures.

Advertising Policy 
  This journal does not carry advertising. All the related costs are supplied by Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.

Data sharing policy
  The data sharing policy in JSBCH is the same as the ones that came in the last updated edition in ICMJE (www.icmje.org/update.html) and we will be committed to implementing them.
  Journal of Social Behavior and Community Health encourages data sharing as this is a crucial issue asked by most funding sources. Sharing data help reproducibility, lowers duplication, and allows re-use and purposing. JSBCH supports Data DOIs as persistent.


Archiving Policy
  The articles published by JSBCH are archived on our website and also in multiple international databases around the world including increasing visibility and long-term digital preservation.
  These archives include:
Google Scholar
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
Index Copernicus
ISC (Islamic World Science Citation Center)
SID (Scientific Information Database)
MAGIRAN
  All journal issues are archived in the library of School of Public Health in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.

Open Access Policy

  • JSBCH does not charge readers and their institution for access to its papers. Full text download of all new and archived papers are free of charge (APC). Registration on JSBCH website is free of charge for authors and reviewers.
  • JSBCH allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles and allow readers to use them for any other lawful purpose.
  • JSBCH lets author(s) to distribute, remix, and build upon their study, even commercially, as long as they credit us for the original creation.
  • JSBCH has a registered deposit policy.
  • JSBCH allows the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions.
  • JSBCH allows the author(s) to retain publishing rights without restrictions.

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