Ethics in scientific publications
Updated on: 10/03/2022
1. Code of Ethics
The editorial policy on the ethical aspects of the scientific publication of this journal is governed by the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
2. Policy on conflicts of interest
As expressed in the Recommendations for the preparation, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, elaborated by the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICJME), public trust in the scientific process and the credibility of published articles depend in part on how transparently are conflicts of interest handled during planning, implementation, writing, peer review, editing and publication. According to these recommendations, a conflict of interest exists when someone during the publication or arbitration process (author, reviewer or editor) has ties that may influence judgement. These ties involve different types, namely:
- Financial relationships with the industry, at personal level or with direct relatives such as: salary or fees for employment or employment relationship; consultancies and/or share holding.
- Personal relationships.
- Academic competition.
- Intellectual interests.
Although conflicts may not be completely annulled, if the author is certain or even suspicious about their existence, he/she should declare them in the Letter to the Editor and in the body of the article, before the bibliographic references.
2.1 Authors
Information available on the Letter to the Editor
2.2 Reviewers
Information available on the Guidelines for external review evaluation
2.3 Editors
The editors participating in final decisions about accepting or rejecting the publication of articles (Director, Director Editorial and Associate Editors) shall refrain from participating in such decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that may lead to conflicts of interest regarding the articles they are evaluating. Likewise, the editors of the Revista Argentina de Salud Pública commit not to share the information of manuscripts or their reception and evaluation, review process content or status, collaborators’ critics or their final destination, with anyone except for the authors and reviewers.
3. Corrections, retractions and editorial expressions of concern
For the management of these aspects, the Revista Argentina de Salud Públicatakes as a reference the recommendations given in the Recommendations for the preparation, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, which establishes the following:
3.1 Corrections: if necessary, a correction notice will be published as soon as the mistake/s is/are detected, detailing the changes and the original publication with the title Errata. Also, a new version of the article will be published detailing the changes concerning the original version and the dates when the changes were made. Likewise, the previous online version will display that a latest version of the article is available.
3.2 Misconduct: Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplication and fragmentation: although the editorial policy of the journal is based on the publication of original and unpublished articles in order to avoid this behavior considered against scientific ethics, Associate Editors use Internet search engines to compare similitudes with other texts of the same authors regarding aspects such as: title, methodology and results of the research presented for publication. In case some of the conducts mentioned is detected, the concerned article may be removed before publication with prior notice to the author, or after publication, in which case the author will publish a retraction note.
3.3 Expressions of concern: The journal may consider the publication of an Expression of concern notice if an article is under investigation. This notice may be published when the editor has significant reasons of concern on the reliability of the contents of an article, but still not enough information to warrant a retraction note until the institutional investigation is complete.
