Handling Professional Misconduct

The Journal of Health in the Field, affiliated with Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, follows the guidelines and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when handling research and publication misconduct, and is in the process of applying for COPE membership. The purpose of this procedure is to protect the integrity of the scientific record, ensure fairness to all parties, and avoid prejudging any case before it has been investigated.

1. Ethical Requirements for Acceptance

Compliance with the following requirements is mandatory. Manuscripts that do not meet them will not be accepted.

• Ethics approval for all studies: For every submitted study, authors must provide a valid ethics approval code issued by the ethics committee of the university or institution where the research was conducted, and must state this code in the manuscript. For studies involving human participants, informed consent must also be obtained from the participants.
• Field and community-based studies: Authors must obtain the necessary permissions from local authorities and relevant bodies, secure the consent of the communities or individuals studied, and protect the confidentiality of participants’ identities and personal information.
• Environmental data and sampling: Authors must report the sampling methods, locations and dates of data collection, and data sources in sufficient detail to allow verification. When using data from other parties or organizations, authors must cite the source and the permission to use the data.
• Conflicts of interest and funding: Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest and all sources of research funding, and must describe the role of funders in the research.
• Artificial intelligence (AI): The use of AI in preparing a manuscript, including generating text, analyzing data, or creating figures or tables, is not permitted. Only language editing of the manuscript with such tools is acceptable. Authors must declare in the authorship declaration form that AI was used solely for language editing. Authors bear full responsibility for the content of the manuscript.

2. Conduct Covered as Misconduct

Author misconduct:

• Plagiarism and self-plagiarism (reusing substantial portions of one’s own earlier work without proper citation)
• Fabrication of data, and falsification of results, including selective omission of findings or manipulation of tables, graphs, or images
• Duplicate or simultaneous submission or publication of the same research
• Gift or ghost authorship, or failure to meet authorship criteria
• Failure to disclose conflicts of interest or funding sources
• Violation of the ethical requirements in Section 1, and providing false information in the authorship declaration, including use of AI beyond language editing

Reviewer misconduct: Breach of manuscript confidentiality; misuse of the content of a manuscript under review; reviewing despite a conflict of interest; biased reviewing or reviewing that includes personal criticism of the authors; and attempting to identify the authors.

Editorial misconduct: Disclosing reviewers’ identities; making decisions under a conflict of interest; and altering or reversing editorial decisions without justification.

3. Reporting Suspected Misconduct

Any individual or organization may report suspected misconduct concerning manuscripts under review or already published by emailing the journal at the address listed on the journal’s Contact page. Reports should include the details of the manuscript, a description of the alleged misconduct, and any available supporting evidence. The journal will acknowledge receipt of the report within 7 working days. The identity of the person reporting will be kept confidential as far as possible. An allegation that is not supported by evidence will not, on its own, be grounds for rejecting or retracting a manuscript.

4. Investigation Process

• Initial assessment: The Editor-in-Chief and the Deputy Editor log the report and assess the initial credibility of the evidence. Where necessary, the similarity-check report (iThenticate) and the manuscript’s supporting documents are reviewed.
• Notifying the author and requesting a response: The corresponding author is informed in writing and has 14 days to provide an explanation and supporting documents. No final decision will be made without giving the author an opportunity to respond.
• Further investigation: In complex cases, the journal may form an advisory committee of independent experts or seek expert opinion from outside the editorial board.
• Referral to the institution: In serious cases, or when the author’s response is not satisfactory, the journal will contact the author’s university or institution. In cases involving research ethics or serious misconduct, the matter will be referred to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and, where necessary, to higher authorities.
• Decision and notification: The outcome is communicated to the author and to the person who reported the concern.

5. Possible Actions

Depending on the nature and severity of the misconduct, one or more of the following actions will be taken:

• Manuscripts under review: Requesting an explanation or correction, suspending the peer-review process, or rejecting the manuscript.
• Published articles: Publishing a correction for errors that can be remedied; publishing an expression of concern while the matter is being clarified; and retracting the article in cases of fabrication, confirmed plagiarism, duplicate publication, or errors that render the findings unreliable.
• Actions regarding authors or reviewers: A written warning; notification of the author’s or reviewer’s institution; and, in severe or repeated cases, refusal to consider submissions from the author for a period proportionate to the misconduct, or removal of the reviewer from the journal’s reviewer pool.

Retracted articles are not removed from the website. They remain accessible and are clearly marked “Retracted”, with the reason for retraction stated. In cases of plagiarism, the journal will also publish an online statement linking the original article to the plagiarizing article.

6. Impartiality and Conflicts of Interest in Investigations

If a report concerns the Editor-in-Chief or the Deputy Editor, or if either has a conflict of interest with the author or the subject matter, the person concerned will be excluded from the investigation and the case will be referred to an independent member of the editorial board or to the relevant authority at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Case information is confidential and is shared only with those involved in the investigation, and only as necessary.

7. Appeals and Reconsideration

An author or a person who reported a concern may request reconsideration within 30 days of being notified of the decision, by submitting new evidence.