Copyright and Licensing Policy

Social Determinants of Health Journal

1. Open Access Statement

The Social Determinants of Health journal is a fully open-access journal, which means that all articles are freely and permanently accessible to everyone immediately upon publication. We believe that making research freely available supports the greatest possible exchange of knowledge and advances the global goal of health equity.

2. Licensing Terms

All articles published in the Social Determinants of Health journal are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) .

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, anyone may:

Provided that:

• Attribution: Appropriate credit is given to the original authors and the source (the Social Determinants of Health journal)

• Link: A link to the license is provided

• Indication: Indication is given if changes were made to the original work

The full legal text of the license is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

3. Copyright Ownership

Authors retain copyright of their work. By submitting a manuscript to the Social Determinants of Health journal, authors grant the journal the right of first publication under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Upon acceptance, authors are required to sign a Copyright and Licensing Agreement confirming that:

• They are the original authors and hold the copyright to the work

• They grant the journal the right to publish the work under CC BY 4.0

• The work does not infringe upon the rights of others

• They have obtained all necessary permissions for any third-party material included

4. Author Rights

Authors who publish with the Social Determinants of Health journal retain the following rights:

5. Third-Party Content

If the manuscript includes third-party copyrighted material (e.g., figures, tables, photographs, maps), authors must:

1. Obtain written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material under the CC BY 4.0 license

2. Provide appropriate attribution to the original source

3. Submit copies of permissions to the editorial office upon request

Failure to obtain necessary permissions may result in the material being removed or the manuscript being rejected.

6. Permissions for Non-Open Access Use

While all content is published under CC BY 4.0, parties seeking to use the material in ways not covered by this license (e.g., representing the work as their own) must obtain explicit permission from the authors and the journal publisher.

For such inquiries, please contact the journal office.

7. Publisher's Role

The Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, as the publisher, holds the right to:

• Publish and distribute the work under the CC BY 4.0 license

• Register the work's metadata with DOI, indexing services, and archives

• Take appropriate action against any infringement or unauthorized use

The publisher does not claim exclusive copyright ownership, as this remains with the authors.

8. Copyright Notices in Published Articles

Every published article will include the following copyright notice:

© [Year] Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published by the Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

9. Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

The journal takes copyright infringement and plagiarism seriously. All manuscripts are screened using plagiarism detection software. If copyright infringement is suspected, the journal will:

1. Investigate in accordance with COPE guidelines

2. Contact the authors and relevant institutions

3. If confirmed, issue a retraction and notify affected parties

4. Take legal action if necessary and appropriate

10. Frequently Asked Questions