Elderly Health Journal

    The Elderly Health Journal (EHJ), with a rigorous review process and clear ethical policies, supports the publication of high-quality scientific studies. When faced with ethical issues, the journal is committed to investigating and taking the necessary measures to ensure compliance with ethical protocols, the safety of research participants, and adherence to COPE principles.
    EHJ follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)’s flowcharts and guidelines, also “the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals”  issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org).
    The research that involves human beings (or animals) must adhere to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DoH-Oct2008.pdf). The privacy rights of human participants must be observed. Also, attention should be paid to the principles of participants' anonymity and their information confidentiality, which should be mentioned in the manuscript.
     Authors who submit their articles to our journal must:

• Ensure that their manuscripts are ethically sound and meet the necessary ethical standards reflected in EHJ policies.

• Present their research findings accurately in the EHJ format including Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.

• Ensure accurate inclusion of the names of all and only those who qualify for authorship and clearly state their contributions.

• Disclose any potential competition or conflict of interest at submission.

• The data and methods used in the research should be presented in sufficient detail in the manuscript so that other researchers can replicate their work. EHJ recommended that the raw data be made publicly available unless there is a compelling reason (eg, participant's confidentiality).

• Note that submitting the articles to more than one journal at the same time is not ethical and it is considered as misconduct.

• The results of the research must not previously publish, and any translation must follow our translation policy.

• For any previously published content such as figures or tables, permission to reproduce from the copyright holder is required.

Authorship 

   EHJ follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript; authors must meet all four 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.”
For those who contributed to the research but did not have the authorship criteria, it is necessary to mention their names in the "acknowledgments section".

Changes to Authorship

    Any changes to the list of authors (including any addition, removal, or rearrangement of author names) after submitting the manuscript must be approved by all authors, including those who have been removed. All authors must complete and sign up for an “authorship change form” which provides a reason for the change. The journal reserves the right to review the issues related to authorship and to approve changes in authorship after the manuscript submission.
EHJ follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) policies in this regard.

  Misconducts

  At EHJ, we are dedicated to maintaining the highest ethical standards in all aspects of our operations and scholarly publications. Our policy on misconduct is designed to support integrity in the research and publication process, and to address any issues in a fair and timely manner.
Misconduct in research and publication includes, but is not limited to:
Plagiarism
   Plagiarism is copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source without crediting the original source. If the text is copied from another source, it should be placed between quotation marks and refer to the original source. If the study design is inspired by previous studies, this should be explicitly mentioned.
   All submissions to EHJ are checked for plagiarism using standard plagiarism checker software. If plagiarism is detected during the review process or after publication, the paper may be rejected or retracted. We follow coping policies in this field. The plagiarism checking is performed in two stages; immediately after the submission of a manuscript and before publishing. EHJ uses reliable and standard plagiarism checker software for detecting instances of similar text and overlapping in submitted manuscripts.
Image Manipulation  
   According to EHJ policies, any manipulation of the images in such a way as to lead to a misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image is unethical and not accepted. If image manipulation is detected during the review process or after publication, the paper may be rejected or retracted. We follow COPE policies in this field.
Data Fabrication/Falsification
   Data fabrication and falsification mean unauthorized creation, presentation, or reporting of research data with the intent of deceiving the academic community are highly unethical and are an example of publication fraud, which is prosecuted in some jurisdictions.
    EHJ takes following measures to prevent misconduct:
- Encouraging peer reviewers to be vigilant and report any concerns.
- Providing clear guidelines for authors and reviewers about our ethical standards.


 Research Involving Human Subjects

  In all research conducted on human subjects, human tissues, or human data, even non-interventional studies (such as surveys and questionnaire studies), authors must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki rules (https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DoH-Oct2008.pdf) in their research report. Also, the approval code of the ethics committee should be mentioned with the name of the relevant ethics committee. Also, the ethics committee approval letter, including the research title, the date of approval, and the name of the ethics committee, must be submitted with the manuscript.
   If, for some reason, ethical approval is not required, authors must provide the documentation of their ethics committee exemption. Where a study has been granted an exemption, the name of the ethics committee that made the recommendation should be listed in the “Ethical consideration” section with a full explanation of why ethical approval is not required.
   Written informed consent must be obtained from all participants in the study before starting the research, and this topic should also be mentioned in the “Ethical Considerations" section. Details about the participants should be as anonymous as possible. The editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements. The journal reserves the right to ask the authors to provide consent forms signed by the participants, if necessary.

 Clinical Trials Registration
 

EHJ follows the ICMJE guidelines which recommend registration of clinical trials in an approved public trials registry
   (Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials -www.IRCT.ir

   U.S. National Institutes of Health Clinical Trials Registry - http://www.clinicaltrials.gov

   EU Clinical Trials Register - https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu

   WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform - https://apps.who.int/trialsearch/)

   before starting the research. All Iranian Clinical Trials must be registered in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (www.IRCT.ir), in order to be considered for publication.
   Observational studies do not require registration.

 Confidentiality

   The Editor(s) and the editorial staff will take all reasonable steps to preserve the confidentiality of the authors’ and reviewers’ identities. They must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Conflict of Interest

 Editors
   The editors of this journal are aware of the risk of conflict of interest in manuscript management and are asked to disclose potential conflicts with the author (s), if any, to avoid any decisions influenced by relationships with the authors.
  Reviewers
   The EHJ Journal requires referees to provide a fair assessment. As such, editors must ensure that reviewers do not have a conflict of interest, which prevents reviewers from acting unfairly. When referees are invited to review a manuscript, they are asked to consider any competing interests between them and the authors. Referees are asked to disclose any conflicts of interest while refereeing.
  Journal Staff
   Editorial staff members who participate in editorial decisions must provide editors with a current description of their relationships and activities (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which an interest that poses a potential conflict exists. Editorial staff should not use information obtained through working with manuscripts for personal gain.
   Editors should regularly publish their own and their journal's staff disclosure statements.

Corrections, Retractions, and Updates after Publication

   Sometimes, after the publication of an article, it may be necessary to change the article due to reasons determined by the journal's editor, one of the reviewers, or readers, or at the request of the authors themselves. This is done after careful review by the supporting editor to ensure that the necessary changes are made by the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any changes will be accompanied by a post-publication notice permanently and a link is made to the original published article to help the reader see both the retraction note and the article itself. This can be in the form of a corrective notice, corrigendum, and retraction. The purpose of this mechanism is to make permanent and transparent changes, to ensure the integrity of scientific records.
   In case of infringements of professional, and ethical issues, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, duplication, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like that are determined to violate EHJ ethics guidelines, a retraction will be used to correct errors in published articles. The EHJ for retraction of a published article uses the COPE guidelines: https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines

 Complaints Procedures
 

   This procedure applies to complaints about the policies, procedures, or actions of The EHJ Editorial Board. We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively. The following procedures are followed:
Definition
   Our definition of a complaint is as follows:

• The complainant expresses his or her expression of unhappiness as a complaint.

• We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published (which happens every day) but thinks that there has been a failure of process; for example, a long delay, a rude response, or a severe misjudgment.

• The complaint must be about something that is within the responsibility of The EHJ editorial board  - content or process. 

How to Make a Complaint

• The best way to reach us is by email. Complaints should ideally be made to the person the complainant is already in contact with over the matter being complained about. If that is not appropriate, please email elderlyhealthjournalgmail.com.

• 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 appropriate section editor or the executive editor.

• Complaints that are not under the control of the EHJ Editorial Board will be sent to the chairman of the EHJ.

• All complaints will be acknowledged within seven working days.

• 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 is not happy with the resolution, s/he can ask for the complaint to be forwarded to the Ethics Committee at the School of Public Health at  Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.

• If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints should be forwarded to the  Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee, whose decision is final.

• If a complainant remains unhappy after what the university Ethics Committee’s final decision, the complainant may complain to The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE publishes a code of practice for editors of scientific, technical, and medical journals http://www.publicationethics.org. It will consider complaints against editors but only once a journal's own complaints procedures have been exhausted.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use in Journal Articles
 

    EHJ encourages the use of AI in research articles. However, it is important that authors disclose the use of AI in their articles in a transparent and accurate manner. This disclosure should be made in the Acknowledgments section of the article, and should include the following information:

• The name of the AI tool or software used

• The specific purpose for which the AI tool or software was used

• Any limitations or drawbacks associated with the use of the AI tool or software

    By disclosing the use of AI in their articles, authors help to ensure that readers are aware of the potential impact of AI on the results and conclusions of the research.
 Examples of AI Use in Journal Articles: Some examples of how AI can be used in journal articles include:

• Data analysis: AI can be used to analyze large datasets, identify patterns, and make predictions.

• Machine learning: AI can be used to train machine learning models to perform tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and forecasting.

• Computational simulations: AI can be used to create computational simulations that can be used to test hypotheses or explore new ideas.
  
  Submit an Appeal
  
   At EHJ, we are committed to upholding the highest standards of academic and research integrity. We understand, however, that disputes or concerns can arise following editorial decisions. Our appeals policy is designed to provide authors with an avenue to contest editorial decisions on their manuscripts.
  An appeal may be considered if the author(s) believes there has been:
  - A substantial error or misunderstanding by the editor or reviewers.
  - A decision affected by a clear conflict of interest.
  - Evidence of bias or inadequate consideration of the manuscript.
  Authors wishing to submit an appeal should do so by following these steps:
  1. Submit a formal appeal via email within 30 days of the decision date.
  2. Provide a detailed appeal letter stating clearly the grounds for the appeal, including specific responses to any points raised in the decision letter.
  3.  Include any relevant supporting documentation or data that can substantiate the claim.
  Upon receipt of an appeal:
  - The editorial team will acknowledge the receipt of the appeal within one week.
  - The appeal will be reviewed by a senior editorial member not involved in the initial decision.
  - The reviewing editor may consult with additional reviewers or the editorial board if necessary.
  - A decision on the appeal will be communicated to the author(s) typically within six weeks of the appeal submission.
  - If the appeal is upheld, we may overturn the original decision or request a revised submission.
  - If the appeal is rejected, the original decision stands, and further appeals on the same grounds will not be considered.
  Decisions to appeal must not be taken lightly, and the burden of proof rests with the author(s). We reserve the right to reject appeals that do not meet the grounds specified above.
  Please note that this process is designed for the reconsideration of specific editorial decisions and does not guarantee a different outcome. The integrity of our review process is paramount, and the appeals policy is structured to ensure fairness and rigorous academic standards.
  For appeal submissions or inquiries, please contact the editorial office at elderlyhealthjournalgmail.com.
  
  Copyright Statement
   

  EHJ is licensed under the Creative Commons (CC) Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International License. All CC Licenses allow others to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, display, perform, and copy the content of the work as long as the original authors and source are cited correctly. No permission is required for these usages. The CC Attribution-Non-Commercial License allows others to use the works for any non-commercial purposes; the editor’s permission is required for commercial purposes. Under the CC Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, authors retain the ownership of the copyright for their works but agree with the above-mentioned usage of their works by others.