Problems of Social Hygiene,
Public Health and History of Medicine

Aims and Scope

The journal covers theoretical issues of social hygiene, ways to develop healthy lifestyle behaviors, health- and social care delivery models, economic issues, job engineering, health statistics, and the history of medicine and public health. The journal publishes articles on the best practices of сenters for hygiene and epidemiology, methods and results in the study of living conditions and health status, the current state of public health, the work of healthcare providers abroad, designing healthcare facilities, and the development of medicine and healthcare.

The journal also disseminates information on historic dates, the work of scientific societies, conferences, and meetings.

The journal is intended for heads of public health bodies and healthcare institutions, researchers, educators, and other professionals working in the fields of social hygiene, public health management, health statistics, and the history of medicine.

Sections

Health and Society

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Health care reforms

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Education and personnel

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Abroad

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

History of medicine

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Short messages

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

All articles submitted to the editorial office of a journal shall be reviewed in the manner set forth below.

1. The editorial staff shall establish whether the submission is within the scope of the journal and meets the format criteria. The editorial staff shall then forward it either to the Editor-in-Chief, to the Deputy Editor-in-Chief or to the Executive Editor, who shall decide whether the research results described in the article are valid and important. If the results are deemed valid and important, reviewers shall be determined. All articles shall be reviewed by the Editorial Board and the Editorial Council, as well as by independent reviewers. Independent reviewers must be leading experts in the field and have some publications (not older than three years) on the subject covered in the submitted article. Articles submitted by the Editor-in-Chief shall be reviewed by independent reviewers.

2. The review process is confidential. The editorial staff shall send the author/s copies of the reviews or a rejection letter. The editorial staff shall also send copies of the reviews to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, upon a request from the Ministry.

3. The review process requires 2 months. The editorial staff controls the length of the review process; in some circumstances (upon a reviewer’s request), more time may be given to complete the review.

4. To help produce a comprehensive and unbiased review of an article, OAO “Izdatelstvo Meditsina” has developed Instructions for Reviewers that contain a list of criteria to be assessed. Based on the assessment of the criteria, reviewers shall be asked to determine the status of the article in one of the following ways: (a) accept, (b) accept with revision as suggested by the reviewer, (c) re-review required, or (d) reject.

5. A review suggesting corrections and revisions to the submitted article shall be forwarded by the editorial staff to the author, who will be requested either to prepare a revised version of the article based on the recommendations made by the reviewer or to prove that such corrections and/or revisions are not needed. A revised article shall be sent to the reviewers to be re-reviewed.

6. In cases of irreconcilable differences between the author and reviewer, the Editorial Board reserves the right to send the article to another reviewer. Should a conflict arise, the article shall be sent to a member of the Editorial Board or Editorial Council. The final decision shall rest with the Editor-in-Chief.

7. Authors may be requested to list names of potential reviewers when submitting a publication.

8. Submitted articles may be sent to an expert in medical statistics for an additional review.

9. The author shall be notified of a negative review by email.

10. A positive review does not obligate the journal to publish the submitted article. The final decision shall be made by the Editorial Board based on whether the article presents valid data and is in scope for the journal.

11. Authors may appeal a rejection of their article by the editors. 

12. Originals of the reviews shall be stored at the editorial office for 5 years.

Publication Frequency

Журнал выходит каждые 2 месяца, 6 раз в год.

Author Self-Archiving

Prior to acceptance and publication in our journals, authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites.

As part of submission process, authors are required to confirm that the submission has not been previously published, nor has been submitted. After a manuscript has been published in our journal we suggest that the link to the article on journal’s website is used when the article is shared on personal or public websites.

Glossary (by SHERPA)

• Preprint – In the context of Open Access, a preprint is a draft of an academic article or other publication before it has been submitted for peer-review or other quality assurance procedure as part of the publication process. Preprints cover initial and successive drafts of articles, working papers or draft conference papers.
• Postprint – The final version of an academic article or other publication – after it has been peer-reviewed and revised into its final form by the author. As a general term this covers both the author’s final version and the version as published, with formatting and copy-editing changes in place.

Delayed Open Access

The contents of this journal will be available in an open access format 24 month(s) after an issue is published.

The journal is compliant with Green Open Access mode for articles distribution.

You can find Open Access articles on the journal's WEB-site and on eLibrary.ru

To get access to new articles within the embargo period you should subscribe to the journal on the Publisher's web-site (see details).

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Also, the journal makes full-text archives on the Russian Science Electronic Library (http://elibrary.ru/) and Russian State Library.

Indexation

• Elsevier bv Scopus
• Experta Medica Abstract Journals
• Index Medicus
• Index to Dental Literature
• Chemical Abstracts
• Current Digest of the Russian Press
• EBSCOhost
• International Nursing Index
• PubMed
• Russian Science Citation Index (on Web of Science)

Publication Ethic Statement

1. Rights and responsibility of the Publisher

– Current Publication ethics Statement (hereinafter the Statement) was developed in cooperation with editorial board of the journal

– Principles of the publication ethics were approved by editorial board of the journal

– Editorial board is solely responsible for compliance with the principles indicated in the current Statement

– Publisher can give editorial boards advice on amending and supplementing the Statement

The journal followings publishing and journal best practices guidelines of these organizations:

• Association of science editors and publishers (ASEP) (http://rasep.ru)
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (publicationethics.org)
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (www.icmje.org)
• Council of Scientific Editors (CSE) (www.councilscienceeditors.org)
• National Information Standards Organization (NISO) (www.niso.org/workrooms/piej)

2. Rights and responsibilities of editors

Editors are solely responsible for all content of the journal except advertising. Editors have a responsibility to uphold the principles of ethics in relation to:

• readers;
• authors;
• studies objects;
• sponsors of research and publications;
• reviewers.

Editorial responsibility to readers

– Editors guarantee that the information published in journals, reliable, unbiased, and not engaged by the interests of advertisers, or other organizations.

– Editors provide readers with information about the authors of the papers published in journals and the institutions in which the study was conducted.

– Editors inform readers about the participation of commercial organizations and their role in the research or the preparation of publications and any other conflicts of interest that may affect the results of studies.

– Editors receive comments and suggestions from readers to improve the quality of journals, comments and suggestions may be published in journals in the \”Letter to the Editor\”.

– Editors review complaints received from readers regarding materials published in journals and inform them about the measures taken.

– Editors publish clarifications and apologies to the readers if necessary.

– If errors are found, editors take steps to correct or remove them.

– Editors do everything possible to avoid compromising the intellectual and ethical standards by business interests.

– Journal editors are not responsible for the advertising content.

– Advertising content is published in the journal according to the advertising policy of the Publisher.

Editorial responsibility to authors

– editors have the right to accept or reject an article for publication in the journal, based on the opinion of the reviewers on the relevance, originality and authenticity of the information contained in the article and its consideration to the publication ethics principles adopted in the journal.

– Peer-review is conducted according to the procedure of reviewing of articles adopted in the journal.

– Authors can get acquainted with the procedure of reviewing. Decision of the editorial shall be in writing and may be given to the author upon his request.

– Editors may not be interested in accepting or rejecting an article. In case of an abuse of editor’s position on the editorial board, the person will be suspended from work in the editorial board and author will be apologized to in writing

– Articles are accepted only if there is sufficient evidence in favor of the publication and rejected only if there is sufficient evidence in favor of rejecting

– Authors are notified of the reasons for rejection of articles and receive recommendations to correct deficiencies

– Authors have the opportunity to appeal editorial decisions to adopt or reject articles.

– Authors are provided with information on the rules of preparation and submission of articles for publication in the journal.

– Editors ensure copyright compliance when considering an application for publication of articles

– Editors have the right to remove already published article in case of opening of facts that were not known in the course of reviewing. The procedure of removing can be found on the home pages of journals on the Internet

Editorial responsibility to studies objects

– Editors follow the provisions of the WMA Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects.

– Editors check the presence of ethics approval in all articles dealing with original human or animal data.

– Authors are required to provide a Data Sharing Statement that fulfill ICMJE Requirements.

Editorial responsibility to sponsors of research and publication

– Editors undertake duties to publish information about sponsors of research and publications.

Editorial responsibility to reviewers

– Editors provide reviewers with guidelines on conclusions on publications and a list of questions that must be answered in the process of reviewing articles

– Information about the rules for reviewers can be found (see below).

– Editors ensure objectivity and impartiality of reviewers, promptly identifying violations and taking steps to address them

– Editors write conclusion to accept or reject an article based on the judgment of reviewers

– If an open system for review was not adopted in the journal, editors provide anonymity of reviewers’ personalities

– Reviewers are required to inform the editors if they reveal conflicts of interest

3. Rights and responsibilities of authors

– While submitting an article ito the journal, the authors confirm that the article is issued in accordance with the requirements published on a home page of the journal on the Internet.

– Authors must comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

– Authors should understand that the article will be rejected if the following facts are found:

• • • 1) Article does not meet the requirements published on the home page of the journal on the Internet;
    • 2) Author refuses to follow the recommendations of the editorial board to eliminate errors in the manuscript;
    • 3) There is a violation of the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research, approved by the World Medical Association;
    • 4) An article dealing with original human or animal data is not provided with ethics approval;
    • 5) An article contains plagiarism or false data;
    • 6) Results of the study have been published in another publication.

– Authors are required to provide information about commercial organizations supported research or publication, and any other conflicts of interest that may have an influence on the content of the manuscript

– Authors have the opportunity to appeal editorial decisions to adopt or reject articles. The appeal procedure can be found (see below).

4. Committee on Conflict Resolution

• Each editorial board has a Committee on Conflict Resolution to resolve issues and complaints related to possible violations of the principles of publication ethics indicated in current Statement. The Chairman and members of the Committee are selected among the members of the editorial board by the voting of all members. The composition of the Committee and contacts of the person to whom complaints are sent are located on the home pages of journal.
• The Committee investigates complaints from authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and publishers.

Appeal

Appeal procedure

Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions to adopt or reject articles.

1. In case of disagreement with the editorial decision of acceptance or rejection of the article, the author refers to the relevant journal editors in writing indicating the reasons for treatment

2. Committee on Conflict Resolution of the respective journal considers the appeal

3. Change in editorial decisions regarding an article possible in cases where: – Author gave more actual results, which are not taken into account during the primary reviewing of the article – Author provided with information about conflict of interest that was not provided in the primary reviewing of this article – Author expresses his concern about biased reviews

4. If there are sufficient grounds the Committee on Conflict Resolution of the relevant journal makes a proposal for editorial board to change or to uphold the initial decision regarding the publication of the article

5. If necessary, editors may involve additional reviewer for final decision

6. Editorial board of the journal makes a decision regarding acceptance or rejection on the basis of reviewing of the initial decision

7. Editorial decision following its review of the initial decision is final and is not subject to appeal

Article Retraction

Retraction of a published article is a measure of the last resort and may occur under circumstances such as:

– infringements of law and defamation;

– more than 20% of direct quotes or paraphrased material;

– false or inaccurate data that, if acted upon, would pose a serious health risk;

– a vague and incomplete description of conflicts of interests.

Article Retraction Procedure

1. Retraction of an article shall be initiated upon a written request by authors, readers, reviewers, editors, or publishers that shall be submitted to the journal in which the article was published.

2. The journal’s Commission on Conflict Resolution shall examine the request.

3. The Commission on Conflict Resolution shall decide to retract the article if there is sufficient evidence to do so.

4. Upon consideration of the request, the Commission on Conflict Resolution shall notify the person who initiated article removal of its decision.

5. Should the Commission decide to retract the article, this shall be agreed on with the authors, and the journal shall publish a retraction statement that shall include the article’s metadata.

6. If the journal’s articles are indexed in databases, the journal shall notify the databases that the article has been retracted and should not be cited, identifying the reasons for the retraction.

Plagiarism detection

We use native Russian-language plagiarism detection software Antiplagiat to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.

Author fees

Articles in the journal "Problems of Social Hygiene, Public Health and History of Medicine" are published free of charge for all authors.

The editorial Board does not charge the authors for placing articles in open access, reviewing, preparing the journal for publication, as well as the content of the site and electronic depositing of manuscripts.