Publication Ethics

The Journal of Medicine and Urban Health (JMUH) is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and rigor in scientific publishing. To ensure ethical compliance across all stages of the peer-review and publication process, JMUH strictly adheres to the core practices and guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The following ethical statements outline the mandatory roles and responsibilities of authors, reviewers, and editors. Adherence to these guidelines is required for all individuals participating in the submission, evaluation, and management of manuscripts submitted to JMUH.

Roles and Responsibilities of Authors

1) Originality and Redundant Publication

Submitted manuscripts must be original contributions that have not been previously published in any form, including academic proceedings, books, or other journals. Manuscripts must not be currently under consideration or review by any other domestic or international journal. Authors must ensure the work is not published elsewhere after acceptance.

2) Ethical Approval and Human Subject Protection

For research involving human participants or animal subjects, authors must strictly adhere to relevant laws, ethical principles, and international standards. Research protocols must receive formal approval from an appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethics Committee prior to study initiation, and proper consent or permission must be obtained from human participants. Furthermore, authors conducting clinical trials or human interventional studies must register their study protocols in a publicly accessible registry (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov or the Thailand Clinical Trials Registry) prior to participant enrollment.

3) Citation, Acknowledgment, and Plagiarism

Authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder or publisher to reproduce or reuse figures, tables, or other copyrighted material that has been previously published, unless such material is available under a license that permits the intended use. Appropriate attribution and citation must be provided for all reproduced material. Authors are responsible for obtaining and documenting any required permissions. In the Acknowledgments section, authors should formally recognize non-author contributors (e.g., technical, editorial support) and funding sources, ensuring permission is obtained from all named individuals. In addition, JMUH reserves the right to use plagiarism-detection software, such as Turnitin, to screen all submitted manuscripts. The overall similarity index should be below 25%; however, this threshold is for screening purposes only. Manuscripts may require further investigation if a substantial proportion of the similarity originates from a single source, even when the overall similarity index is below 25%.

4) Data Accuracy, Honesty, and Integrity

Authors must present an accurate account of the research performed and an objective discussion of its relevance. Underlying data must be represented clearly and honestly. Authors must not engage in data fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation. Conclusions must be supported directly by the evidence presented in the manuscript rather than personal opinions.

5) Authorship Criteria and Accountability

All named co-authors must have significantly contributed to the actual work, spanning areas including Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing-Original Draft Preparation, and Writing-Review & Editing. All authors share collective accountability for the overall content, validity, and integrity of the published manuscript.

6) Disclosure in Conflicts of Interest

Authors must explicitly disclose all sources of financial support for the research and writing process, as well as any personal, commercial, or financial conflicts of interest. Disclosures must be formally included in the Conflicts of Interest section of the manuscript at the time of submission.

7) Post-Publication Errors and Corrections

If authors or readers discover a significant error or inaccuracy in a published work, they must promptly notify the editors. Depending on the nature and extent of the error, corrections are managed through one of two formal mechanisms.

Erratum: Published to correct significant administrative, production, or typesetting errors introduced by JMUH.

Retraction: Issued if the errors severely compromise the overall findings, integrity, or conclusions of the article.

Roles and Responsibilities of Reviewers

1) Confidentiality and Non-Exploitation

Reviewers must treat all submitted manuscripts and peer-review materials as strictly confidential documents. They must not share, discuss, or distribute any aspect of the manuscript with unauthorized third parties or seek to contact the authors directly without express permission from the editors. Information, ideas, or unpublished data obtained through the peer-review process must not be quoted, referenced, or exploited for personal advantage, ongoing research, or commercial gain.

2) Expertise and Qualification

Reviewers should accept review invitations only if they possess genuine knowledge, understanding, and technical expertise in the manuscript's specific field of research. If a reviewer feels unqualified to evaluate the manuscript or foresees an inability to provide an objective assessment, they must decline the invitation promptly.

3) Objectivity and Fair Evaluation

Evaluation must be conducted objectively and constructively. Reviewers should assess the manuscript based on its original contribution, clarity of argument, quality of methodology, and strength of evidence. Reviewers must express their views clearly, supporting their evaluations with clear scientific reasoning and references where necessary. Personal opinions without backing evidence or personal bias must not influence review decisions.

4) Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must immediately declare any real, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest to the editors—including financial, competitive, collaborative, or personal relationships with any authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript. If reviewers discover a potential conflict after receiving a manuscript or realizing prior involvement in the study, they must immediately decline or withdraw from the review process.

5) Detection of Misconduct and Acknowledgment of Sources

Reviewers must immediately and confidentially alert the editors if they suspect any form of academic misconduct, including plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, duplicate submission, redundant publication, or salami slicing. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors and bring any substantial overlap or similarity between the manuscript and existing literature to the editors’ attention.

6) Timeliness and Reliability

Reviewers are expected to complete and submit their evaluations within the designated timeframe. If an unexpected delay arises that prevents meeting the deadline, reviewers must inform JMUH immediately so that alternative arrangements or extensions can be managed.

Roles and Responsibilities of Editors

1) Editorial Independence, Fairness, and Publication Decisions

The editors must evaluate every submitted manuscript strictly on its academic merit, scientific rigor, original contribution, and alignment with JMUH’s scope. Decisions must be made without bias regarding the authors' race, gender, religious beliefs, culture, nationality, political philosophy, or institutional affiliation. The section editor recommends the decision to the editor-in-chief who retains final authority over publication decisions, guided by peer-review evaluations, journal policies, and legal standards governing libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Decision-making must remain completely independent of commercial interests, political pressures, or personal relationships. The editors must never alter manuscript content or reviewer evaluations, nor interfere with legitimate scholarly exchanges between authors and reviewers.

2) Peer Review Management and Quality Assurance

The editors are responsible for overseeing a fair, unbiased, thorough, and timely peer-review process, ensuring manuscripts are evaluated by qualified experts in the relevant field. The editors must not request authors to include inappropriate citations to specific journals or articles solely to artificially elevate the citation count of the journal, themselves, or their associates.

3) Confidentiality and Protection of Data

The editors must maintain double-blind integrity by protecting the identities of both authors and reviewers throughout the evaluation process. No information regarding submitted manuscripts may be disclosed to third parties prior to publication. Unpublished ideas, data, or materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts must remain strictly confidential and must never be quoted, referenced, or used by the editors for their own research, academic work, or personal/commercial advantage.

4) Conflicts of Interest and Recusal

The editors must recuse themselves from managing or deciding upon manuscripts in which they have a personal, financial, competitive, or collaborative conflict of interest with any of the authors or institutions involved. The editors must not seek any commercial or business benefits from submissions or published articles.

5) Research and Publication Misconduct

The editors must screen submitted manuscripts using dedicated plagiarism-detection software such as Turnitin. If substantial redundancy or plagiarism is detected, the evaluation process must be paused immediately, and the corresponding author contacted for formal clarification. Allegations of ethics violations, data fabrication, or misconduct must be handled strictly in accordance with recognized international ethical workflows (e.g., COPE guidelines).

6) Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Governance

The editors are responsible for establishing mechanisms to promptly address post-publication errors, formal complaints, or ethics violations by publishing erratum, or retraction when necessary. The editors must actively monitor, evaluate, and update journal standards, policies, and governance to uphold long-term quality, transparency, and alignment with evolving scientific standards.

Appeals and Complaints Policy

Appeals Against Editorial Decisions

Authors may appeal a rejection within 14 days by emailing jmuh@nmu.ac.th with factual evidence of scientific error or reviewer bias. Disagreements on editorial judgment (e.g. novelty, scope) are ineligible. Do not submit revised manuscripts unless requested. The editor-in-chief’s decision is final and unappealable.

Complaints Policy

For procedural failures, delays, or ethical breaches, email jmuh@nmu.ac.th with concise details and supporting evidence. The editors will objectively investigate all complaints in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Ethical Concerns in Human or Animal Subjects

To uphold internationally recognized standards of publication ethics, including the guidelines and principles of the COPE, JMUH requires all submissions involving human participants, human biological materials, identifiable human data, or animal subjects to include an explicit ethical statement in the Materials and Methods section. Research involving human participants or identifiable human materials or data must comply with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and applicable national and institutional regulations. Authors must state whether the study received approval from an appropriate IRB, Research Ethics Committee, or equivalent body, and provide the official name of the committee and approval or protocol number. Where applicable, authors should indicate whether the study was exempt from ethical review or received a formal waiver, with appropriate documentation.

Studies involving human participants must also state whether written informed consent was obtained and describe measures taken to protect participant privacy and confidentiality. For research involving vulnerable populations (e.g., children, pregnant women, or cognitively impaired individuals), authors must demonstrate that additional safeguards were implemented to protect participant welfare and obtain written informed consent or assent from legal guardians or representatives. For case reports and other publications containing potentially identifiable information, images, or other personal materials, authors must obtain appropriate consent for publication or provide a documented waiver permitted by applicable regulations. Clinical trials or human interventional studies must be registered in a recognized public clinical trial registry, where applicable, and the registry name and registration number must be reported.

Research involving animals must receive prior approval from an appropriate Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Animal Ethics Committee, or equivalent body. Authors must provide the committee’s name and approval or protocol number and state that the study complied with applicable national or international standards for the humane care and use of animals. These requirements are intended to ensure ethical conduct, participant and animal welfare, transparency, and scientific integrity.

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

JMUH is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity, quality, and transparency in scientific publishing. JMUH strictly enforces zero-tolerance policies regarding scientific misconduct and fraudulent practices. In accordance with the guidelines set forth by COPE, JMUH addresses specific ethical breaches as outlined below.

1) Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another author’s work, ideas, text, data, or figures as one’s own. JMUH screens all submitted manuscripts using plagiarism-detection software such as Turnitin. Manuscripts containing uncredited verbatim text, extensive paraphrasing without proper citation, or self-plagiarism will be rejected immediately. If plagiarism is identified during peer review, the evaluation process is halted, and the editor-in-chief will request a formal explanation from the authors. Failure to provide a satisfactory response will result in immediate rejection. If plagiarism is confirmed post-publication, the article will be formally retracted, and the authors' affiliated institutions will be notified.

2) Falsification and Fabrication

Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or altering data, images, and results to give a false impression or obscure unfavorable findings. While fabrication is inventing data, results, or experimental details that were not obtained in the actual research process. Both practices represent severe breaches of scientific integrity. Authors may be requested to provide raw, unedited data files for auditing during peer review or post-publication investigations. Verified instances will result in immediate rejection or retraction, accompanied by notification to the authors' affiliated institutions.

3) Duplications or Salami Publications

Duplications are publishing the same data, findings, or substantial portions of work across multiple journals without transparent disclosure and explicit permission. Furthermore, salami slicing is artificially splitting a single, comprehensive dataset into multiple minimal publishable units to inflate publication counts. JMUH requires manuscripts to present novel, cohesive, and clinically meaningful datasets. Submissions derived from broader projects must clearly reference primary publications and justify the distinct research questions addressed in the secondary article. Verified instances will result in immediate rejection or retraction, accompanied by notification to the authors' affiliated institutions.

4) Unreliable and Manipulated References

Authors must ensure all cited literature is authentic, relevant, and verified, as all references undergo systematic verification during the technical review stage. JMUH strictly prohibits reference manipulation—including irrelevant self-citations, coercive citations, or arbitrary references added solely to inflate citation metrics—as well as hallucinated citations, such as non-existent studies, or artificial intelligence-generated literature. Any manuscript found containing contextually disconnected or fake references will be placed on hold until resolved or rejected.

5) Ghost or Guest Authorship

Ghost authorship is the omission of individuals who made substantial contributions to the research or writing. Guest authorship is the inclusion of individuals who do not meet full authorship criteria solely for prestige, or seniority. Both are explicitly prohibited. All listed authors must fulfill all four standard ICMJE criteria by actively participating in the study's conception or analysis, drafting or revising the manuscript, approving the final version, and taking accountability for the work. Any non-author contributors, such as research assistants or statisticians, must instead be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section along with their specific roles and funding sources. Uncovered instances of ghost or guest authorship will lead to immediate manuscript rejection, formal retraction if discovered post-publication, and reporting to the authors' affiliated institutions

JMUH Procedure for Handling Allegations of Misconduct

The ethical breaches stated above, as well as any other severe violations, are evaluated through JMUH’s formal procedure for handling allegations in accordance with COPE guidelines and international ethical standards. When potential misconduct is flagged by the editor-in-chief, editors, reviewers, readers, or plagiarism-detection software, JMUH proceeds as follows:

1) The editor-in-chief will convene an ad hoc ethics committee to review the documented evidence and reach a formal consensus. Following this internal review, JMUH will formally contact the corresponding author via journal email, presenting the evidence and requesting a detailed written explanation.

2) If the author's response is unsatisfactory, absent, or confirms willful misconduct, JMUH reserves the right to notify the authors' affiliated institution, research institution, or ethics committee for further investigation.

3) Depending on the severity of the infraction, JMUH will enforce appropriate measures, including:

• Immediate rejection of the manuscript under review
• Temporary or permanent submission ban imposed on the authors
• Formal retraction
• Notification sent to the authors' affiliated institution and funding agencies

AI Tool Policy

JMUH permits the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools exclusively for language editing, grammatical corrections, and readability enhancements. AI tools cannot be listed as authors and must not be used to generate, alter, or interpret scientific data, study designs, or conclusions. Furthermore, the use of AI tools to create, generate, or manipulate research figures, images, or graphical abstracts is strictly prohibited. Authors retain full responsibility and liability for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of their submission, including thoroughly verifying all AI-polished text to prevent errors, bias, or confidentiality breaches. If AI tools are used for language refinement, authors must disclose this in the Acknowledgments section.

Example disclosure: "During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [AI tool/service] solely for language editing, grammar improvement, and readability enhancement. The author(s) reviewed and edited all generated text and take full responsibility for the content, accuracy, and scientific integrity of the final published work."