About the Journal

Updated: December 5th, 2024

Background [Top]

The European Journal of Health Research (EJHR), e-ISSN: 2445-0308, was created in 2015 by the Spanish Scientific Society for Research and Training in Health Sciences (ASUNIVEP) and since its creation it has been oriented to disseminate research in health sciences, carried out in Latin America in close collaboration with the Universidad Autónoma de Chile. As of 2021 the journal is edited in Santiago de Chile by the Universidad Autónoma de Chile, in this way the EJHR journal becomes the official organ of its Faculty of Health Sciences and of the Spanish Scientific Society for Research and Training in Health Sciences (ASUNIVEP). Your e-ISSN registration: 2445-0308 was transferred to the ISSN Chile agency (https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2445-0308#)

Focus and Scope [Top]

The European Journal of Health Research (EJHR) e-ISSN: 2445-0308, is a peer-reviewed serial journal and from 2021 on a quarterly basis. It has an international reach and focus in Ibero-America, is open access and uses, since Vol 8 (2022), a Creative Commons licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). Content is available in open access immediately after publication.

Objective : Its objective is to disseminate and publish empirical works - research and /or theorists from any field related to Health, on its broadest side, extending its coverage to professionals from other related disciplines.

Vision : EJHR seeks to be a space for academic discussion and multidisciplinary dialogue in the area of health sciences in all its aspects, which contributes to scientific communication between research and academic peers in the area.

Aimed at: professionals, academics and researchers in the field of health sciences, such as medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, phonoaudiology, biomedicine, health psychology, public health, health administration and related specialties.

The Journal publishes original articles, case reports, review articles, brief communications and letters to the editor in English or Spanish. EJHR has no article processing charges (APC) or item shipping charges for any of the publishing or publishing processes.

e-ISSN: 2445-0308

Frequency [Top]

Since its initiation, the journal has published three issues per year: April, August, and December. As of Vol. 8 of 2022 it is publishing articles under the continuous publication scheme.

Peer review process [Top]

Work submitted to EJHR is subjected to preliminary evaluation by the editorial team and external peer review through double-blind modality.

The procedure includes:

  • Verify that the work belongs to the areas declared by the journal.
  • It conforms to the journal's publication standards (Harvard modified).
  • Sending by the editor-in-chief of the original manuscript to two external academic peers, who will carry out the evaluation under the double-blind modality. The reviewers must complete the evaluation form based on the declared criteria and conclude a) Accept the submission, b) Publishable with modifications, c) Re-evaluable; d) Recommend another journal and e) Not publishable.

Article evaluation criteria [Top]

  • It has a title and abstract in English and Spanish.
  • Expository coherence and clarity.
  • Use of sources and bibliographic references.
  • Methodological rigor.
  • Scientific relevance.
  • Fit to format and spelling.

With the evaluation delivered by the external reviewers, the editor-in-chief makes the decision according to the following categories:
a) Accept 
b) Publishable with modifications
c) Re-evaluable
d) Not publishable.

Articles with a b and c rating must submit a modified version within a period of two weeks. In cases where there is controversy between two evaluators, the editor-in-chief can request a third evaluation and rule in cases of discrepancies.

The papers are sent for evaluation to expert reviewers on the subject and to the entity of origin of the research and the publishing entity.
When one of the two reviewers disagrees on the recommendation, a third is assigned and a majority decides the determination.
The evaluators have 4 weeks to evaluate the articles and give a recommendation to the editor about the chances of the article being published. This decision is immediately communicated to the authors. If the authors have to make minor changes, they are given a period of 1 to 2 weeks to resubmit the corrections, otherwise the article would go through the editing and production process to be published. The process from when an article is sent to when it is published ranges from 1-3 months.
The papers use the Microsoft Word format to make the pertinent evaluations and the OJS through evaluation forms.

Review evaluation criteria [Top]

  • Verify thematic membership
  • Adjustment to publication standards

The document will be evaluated by two external peers in free format, in the table available on the OJS platform. As in the case of research articles, the reviewers evaluate globally according to the categories:

a) Accept submission; 

b) Publishable with modifications; 

c) Re-evaluable and

d) Not publishable.
Based on these considerations, the editor will finally decide between the acceptance or rejection of its publication.

For letters to the editor, thematic membership and adjustment to the journal's standards will be verified. These works will not be subjected to external evaluation and it will be the editor's decision whether or not to publish the works.

Open access policy [Top]

European Journal of Health Research (EJHR) provides immediate open access to its content, based on the principle declared by the university in its Rectory Resolution 103/2017 that Approves Criteria and Procedures for the creation of Scientific Journals of the Autonomous University of Chile and the institutional subscription to the policies of Open Access to the academic, scientific and general public communities.

This journal provides immediate free access to its content under the principle that making research available to the public free of charge supports a greater exchange of global knowledge. The publication are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).

The rights of the works published in this journal are the property of the author and they are free to distribute and disseminate them, as long as the source is correctly cited.

Preprints repositories [Top]

EJHR authors can deposit manuscripts sent to the journal on preprints servers, only when they have been accepted for publication in the editing and production process prior to publication.

Statement of ethics and negligence [Top]
The European Journal of Health Research (EJHR) bases its editorial processes on the code of ethics of the Ethics Committee for Publications (COPE) and the Declaration of Helsinki, which defines the ethical principles for medical research on human beings, including research in human material. and identifiable information.

Authors must declare in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from the subjects who participated in the research or case report. The right to privacy of individuals must be respected, published information must be adequately anonymized and dignity and respect for human rights must always be safeguarded.

Animal experiments must follow international guidelines, such as ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/) or European Union Directive 2010/63 (https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm)  or the NIH Guidelines (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978), this should be indicated in the manuscript.

To comply with these principles, the different actors in the editorial process establish the following commitments:

Responsibilities of the Editorial Committee [Top]

The peer review process carried out by the IEuropean Journal of Health Research (EJHR) is carried out through double blindness and is declared by the Editorial Committee so that the authors know what the evaluation criteria are. The Editorial Committee will always be ready to explain and detail any controversy in the evaluation process.

Editors Responsibilities [Top]

  • Request and verify the documentation that supports compliance with the protocol of ethical research standards such as: the informed consent of the people participating in the research, the evaluation of the clinical and non-clinical biomedical research protocol by the research committees, ethics of its institutions and others that conform to ethical, legal and juridical criteria that are regulated nationally and internationally.
  • Guarantee the selection of highly qualified reviewers and with the least possible biases.
  • Evaluate exclusively based on the scientific merit of the contents, without discrimination of any kind (ethnic, political, gender, economic, institutional, among others.
  • Do not disclose information related to the articles received to people outside the editorial process.
  • Maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts, their authors and reviewers, guaranteeing the anonymity of the process.
  • Do not use the contents of the articles for your own research without the express consent of the authors.
  • Strictly comply with the published times for the editorial process (14 weeks maximum term) and a maximum number of lag between acceptance and publication, that is, no accepted article can remain as unpublished two numbers in a row.
  • Editors will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of articles in which there have been cases of misconduct in the investigation.
  • Editors never will encourage any improper conduct, or knowingly allow such improper conduct to occur.
  • If editors of the journal become knows about any allegation of misconduct in the investigation, the editors will treat the allegations appropriately.
  • Editors should always be willing to post corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Evaluators Responsibilities [Top]

  • Verify that the works include in their methodologies the declaration of ethics of the authors, compliance with the protocols and documentation that evidently supports their adherence to the rules and procedures. In the cases that are not included, inform the editors of the journals to make rejection decisions or request modifications.
  • Carry out a critical, constructive and honest review of the scientific quality of the article received.
  • Inform the Editor in case of conflicts of interest, refusing to carry out the review due to possible biases.
  • Decline to carry out an evaluation if it does not correspond to your field of knowledge or specialization.
  • Evaluate the works within the established term, immediately informing the Editor in case of impossibility of compliance at the time of receiving the request.
  • Consider each assigned manuscript as confidential, and these texts cannot be discussed with other people without the express consent of the Editor.
  • Evaluate objectively, without establishing personal judgments about the authors of the contributions.
  • Justify their evaluations based on the guideline established by EJHR (available on the journal's website).
  • Advise editors if substantial parts of the work have already been published or are under review for another publication.
  • Indicate with precision the bibliographic references of fundamental works possibly forgotten by the author.
  • Inform the Editor of any similarities or overlaps of the manuscript with other published works.
  • Consider the information obtained during the peer review process as confidential, not being able to use it for personal purposes.

Authors Responsibilities [Top]

  • Guarantee that there is no undue experimentation with human beings and ensure the validity of informed consent and the protection of other forms of rights and well-being of people subjected to scientific experimentation.
  • Submit an original work, which does not contain parts of other authors or other fragments of works without the corresponding reference.
  • Present true and unaltered data.
  • Do not publish articles in which the same results are repeated in more than one scientific journal, nor present a manuscript simultaneously in more than one journal.
  • Provide a rigorous indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article.
  • Include those people who have made a real contribution to the article, ranking the authors according to their level of responsibility and involvement in the document.
  • Do not include other authors in the middle of the editorial process. It is not allowed by the editorial policy of the EJHR.
  • Make available sources or data on which the research was based, in case of a duly justified request by the Editor.
  • Explicitly declare the non-existence of conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the proposed interpretations and indicate any funding from agencies and / or projects from which the research article derives.
  • All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of errors, in case of detection.

Plagiarism detection policy [Top]

The European Journal of Health Research (EJHR), has a policy of plagiarism detection, which aims to ensure that the authors comply with the ethical standards necessary to ensure a process of transparency in the publication process.
Editors of the journal carry out the plagiarism detection process through the Turnitin software, and it takes place in the first edition stage (once the article is received). When plagiarism is detected, it is rejected immediately and the authors are informed of the situation.
In the same way, the reviewers are asked, during the evaluation stage, to inform if they detect any form of plagiarism in the manuscript.

When investigating misconduct is detected, editors have the duty to inform the editorial committee so that the necessary measures are taken: retractions, corrections, apologies, clarifications. Editors should always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Erratum, retractions, clarifications and apologies [Top]

The response to a posted error depends on the nature of the error and the person or organization calling attention to the problem. When a research misconduct is detected, the editors have the duty to inform the editorial committee so that the necessary measures are taken: retractions, corrections, apologies, clarifications. Editors and copywriters should always be ready to post corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

For peer-reviewed content, error types can be categorized as:

  • Erratum: If the journal makes a significant error that may affect the work or reputation of the authors, the published notification is called an errata. Correction of errors: if the author (s) make a major mistake, all authors must approve and sign the corrections (correction document) or the journal must be informed of their opinions in disagreement.
  • Retraction: if the results are not valid, all co-authors must sign a retraction explaining the error and how it affected the conclusions. This will be submitted for publication and is the most consequential type of error.
  • Addendum: If additional information about an article is posted, you can include an Editorial Expression of Concern. It is attached to documents that the personal publisher considers require additional explanation for understanding. After receiving the communication to the editor, the Editorial Committee is summoned to make a joint decision on the resulting measure, which when decreed, is communicated to the author and is carried out as soon as possible.

All determinations are made maintaining the integrity and prestige of the journal and its authors. The European Journal of Health Research (EJHR) is governed by COPE standards when developing these processes in editorial practice.

Policy for the preservation of digital archives [Top]

The specific preservation actions used for European Journal of Health Research (EJHR) digital resources will depend largely on the source and type of content, as well as existing technology, expertise, and ongoing support. Preservation actions based on current resources can be broken down as follows:

Subscription-based resources:

As these resources are not owned or directly controlled by the journal, journal staff cannot manage them. Instead, subscription-based digital resources are primarily managed by agreement with the publisher to use third-party preservation services (such as Portico and LOCKSS).

The EJHR will also continue its participation in Portico, LOCKSS, and HathiTrust, in support of third-party archiving arrangements of resources not owned by the journal. The value of participation in these and other such services will be regularly assessed.

Resources created by or for, and owned by the journal:

These resources will be comprehensively managed using the life cycle model. Expectation is that all EJHR resource content and associated metadata will be developed according to current standards and best practices, and stored in a long-term repository within the journal infrastructure or in a consortium-based repository system (such as HathiTrust). 

Rejection rate [Top]

The current rejection rate of the journal is 23%.

DOI [Top]

The journal provides a DOI identifier for each paper published.