1) Commitments of the publisher (HHSMA) and the editor-in-chief

The publisher (HHSMA) and the editor-in-chief are committed to the unbiased review of papers even if their content differs from the respective positions of HHSMA on health policy issues. More specifically, the paper review process is described in section D. In addition, the publisher (HHSMA) and the editor-in-chief state that their final decisions on whether or not to publish an article are exclusively based on scientific criteria and in no case, they are affected by any financial sponsorships in support of the publication of the journal or of HHSMA.

2) Obligations for authors

Originality of content. The content submitted to peer review process must be original, namely not published or submitted to another print journal or e-journal. If the content is derived from an extensive paper with a large wealth of results that can lead to more than one publication, it should be ensured that there is no repetition of the same findings in the various publications. Submitting the same work or part of an already published work to two or more journals is an unacceptable practice and the editor-in-chief may reject papers that have already been published in other publications.

Plagiarism. Authors have to convey and compose the information they collect from other authors’ papers, by using their own writing style, avoiding using word for word, and always indicating the sources (bibliographies). In a small part of the text (eg one or two paragraphs in the whole text) it is possible to transfer verbatim excerpts from other authors’ papers (eg definitions or difficult concepts) if the authors consider that the attempt to convey the meaning of these excerpts with their own writing style involves the risk of conceptual falsification. In this case, these excerpts should be enclosed in quotation marks and italics should be used.

In order to avoid plagiarism (that has also legal implications), the editor-in-chief uses special software (for both Greek and English content) and reserves the right to return the paper to the authors for amendments or even reject it before the peer review process (if malicious plagiarism is detected).

Conflict of Interest/Declaration of Interest & Funding Statement.

If the research or other study submitted for publication has been funded by a third party or there are conflicting interests (conflict of interest) of any kind, the author must disclose the fact, in separate paragraphs at the end of the paper.

Reference list. All the individuals who substantially and actively contributed to the conduct of the study (eg developed the methodological design, carried out the literature review, developed and / or weighed the study tool, etc.) and to the writing of the corresponding text have the right to be included in the reference list. Individuals who provided the approval for a study facilitated the collection of certain data, should be acknowledged to a separate section of the paper, namely the acknowledgments section. Additions/removals or revisions to the authors’ presentation order are not accepted by the editorin- chief after the paper has been submitted.

Securing and maintaining permissions/approvals for conducting a study, securing up-to-date consent of participants. In the case of research studies, the authors must clearly state the permissions/approvals they have received in the Methodology section (eg permission from the scientific committee of a hospital, approval of a research protocol by academic organisations) and describe the process of getting informed consent from the participants. The editor-in-chief reserves the right to request from the authors to submit the respective permissions/ approvals/consent forms.

Retention of raw data. The editor-in-chief may selectively request from authors the raw data of research papers to confirm/ verify the results presented in the submitted paper. In any case, data ownership remains to the authors.

Presentation of results concerning individuals/legal entities. Authors must process and present data derived from individuals (eg health professionals, patients, health service users, etc.) anonymously. In case of presentation of results concerning legal entities (eg hospitals, ministries, organisations, associations), the authors must have ensured the consent of the administrations of the respective legal entities in order to refer nominally to these entities. Otherwise, the reference to the legal entities will be made anonymously through a more general description of their status (eg the study was conducted in a public general tertiary hospital in Attica or in a private rehabilitation center in Northern Greece).

Copyright. The submission of content for publication in the journal “HEALTH Review” automatically constitutes a formal declaration and consent of the author/s that: they grant HHSMA and the journal the exclusive right to firstly publish their work.