Publication Ethics | Health Nexus: Digital Health and Medical AI

Health Nexus: Digital Health and Medical AI is committed to maintaining the integrity, transparency, reliability, and ethical quality of the scholarly record. Authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher are expected to uphold the highest standards of research integrity and publication ethics throughout the submission, peer-review, editorial, production, and post-publication processes.

The journal’s ethical framework is informed by internationally recognised standards and guidance, including the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Declaration of Helsinki, and applicable institutional, national, and international requirements.

Publication decisions are based on scholarly merit, methodological quality, ethical acceptability, transparency, relevance to the journal’s scope, and contribution to knowledge. Commercial considerations, publication fees, advertising relationships, institutional influence, author identity, nationality, political position, or personal characteristics must not determine editorial decisions.

1. Scope and Application

This policy applies to all manuscripts, supplementary materials, datasets, software, source code, models, prompts, images, videos, reviewer reports, editorial communications, corrections, retractions, special issues, and other scholarly content submitted to or published by the journal.

The journal may investigate ethical concerns arising before submission, during peer review, after acceptance, during production, or after publication. Submission or publication does not limit the journal’s authority to request documentation, correct the scholarly record, or take proportionate action where concerns arise.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for the originality, accuracy, validity, transparency, and ethical integrity of their work. By submitting a manuscript, all authors confirm that:

The work is original and has not been fabricated, falsified, plagiarised, or inappropriately manipulated.
The manuscript is not under consideration by another journal.
The same or substantially similar work has not been published elsewhere, except where prior dissemination has been transparently disclosed and is permitted by journal policy.
All data, results, figures, tables, references, quotations, software outputs, and supplementary materials are accurate and honestly presented.
All individuals listed as authors satisfy the journal’s authorship criteria.
All authors have reviewed and approved the submitted version.
All required ethical approvals, permissions, registrations, and informed-consent procedures have been completed.
Funding sources, competing interests, prior dissemination, related manuscripts, and material use of artificial intelligence have been disclosed.
Copyrighted, confidential, personal, or proprietary material has been used lawfully and with appropriate permission.
The authors will cooperate with reasonable editorial requests for data, documentation, clarification, correction, or investigation.

Authors remain accountable for the integrity of the entire article, including material prepared by collaborators, contractors, statistical consultants, editing services, software systems, or artificial-intelligence tools.

3. Originality and Exclusive Submission

Manuscripts must present original scholarly work. Simultaneous submission of the same or substantially similar manuscript to more than one journal is prohibited.

Authors must disclose all closely related manuscripts, conference papers, abstracts, reports, preprints, dissertations, datasets, protocols, or previous publications that may overlap with the submitted work. Copies may be requested for editorial assessment.

Submitting the same study in multiple publications by dividing results without adequate scholarly justification, commonly described as fragmented or salami publication, may constitute redundant publication.

Where a manuscript reports a secondary analysis of previously published or publicly available data, authors must:

Identify the original dataset or publication.
Explain the distinct research question and contribution.
Cite all relevant prior outputs.
Obtain any required permissions or data-access approvals.
Avoid presenting previously reported findings as new.

4. Plagiarism, Text Recycling, and Misappropriation

Plagiarism includes presenting another person’s words, ideas, methods, data, images, code, models, or other intellectual contributions without appropriate acknowledgement.

Prohibited conduct includes:

Verbatim copying without quotation and citation
Close paraphrasing without attribution
Misappropriation of unpublished ideas or materials
Translation of another work without acknowledgement
Reuse of another researcher’s data, figures, code, or model without permission or citation
Submission of work written substantially by another person without disclosure
Contract cheating, purchased manuscripts, or paper-mill material

Limited reuse of an author’s own previously published wording may sometimes be acceptable in standard methodological descriptions where precise repetition is difficult to avoid. However, substantial text recycling must be disclosed and appropriately cited. Reuse must not mislead readers concerning the originality of the work.

The journal may use similarity-detection, image-analysis, reference-verification, or other research-integrity tools. A similarity score alone does not determine misconduct; the nature, extent, location, attribution, and scholarly significance of the overlap will be evaluated.

5. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must reflect substantial intellectual contribution and accountability. Each author should normally satisfy all of the following conditions:

Make a substantial contribution to the conception, design, acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the work.
Draft the manuscript or critically revise it for important intellectual content.
Approve the final version for publication.
Accept accountability for the integrity and accuracy of the work.

Acquisition of funding, general supervision, administrative support, language editing, technical assistance, or provision of materials alone does not automatically qualify an individual for authorship.

The journal prohibits:

Guest authorship
Gift or honorary authorship
Ghost authorship
Purchased authorship
Sale or transfer of author positions
Falsification of author identities or affiliations

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be identified in the acknowledgements with their permission. Authors are encouraged to describe individual contributions using the CRediT contributor-role taxonomy.

Authorship Changes

Requests to add, remove, reorder, or replace authors after submission must include:

A clear explanation for the requested change
A revised author-contribution statement
Written agreement from all existing and proposed authors
Confirmation from the corresponding author

Authorship changes after acceptance are permitted only in exceptional circumstances. The journal may contact authors’ institutions where an authorship dispute cannot be resolved or where misconduct is suspected. The journal does not ordinarily adjudicate private authorship disputes that require institutional investigation.

6. Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

Artificial-intelligence systems, chatbots, large language models, automated agents, and other software tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot approve a manuscript, disclose conflicts of interest, hold legal rights, or assume responsibility for the integrity of scholarly work.

Authors remain fully responsible for all AI-assisted or AI-generated content included in a submission.

Disclosure Requirements

Material use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies must be disclosed when such tools are used for:

Drafting or substantially rewriting text
Translation or language transformation
Literature synthesis
Generating or modifying code
Data analysis or statistical modelling
Image, audio, video, or figure generation
Study design or methodological development
Generation, evaluation, or optimisation of prompts
Automated classification, diagnosis, prediction, or decision support

The declaration should identify the tool, provider, model or version, purpose, affected parts of the work, and procedures used to review and verify the output.

Prohibited Uses

AI tools must not be used to:

Fabricate or falsify data, participants, quotations, citations, images, or results
Generate non-existent or unverifiable references
Manipulate clinical or scientific evidence deceptively
Conceal plagiarism or duplicate publication
Replace required human clinical or ethical judgement
Upload identifiable patient data or confidential materials without appropriate authorisation
Misrepresent automatically generated output as independently verified evidence

AI-generated or materially AI-modified scientific images may be accepted only when generation or modification is an explicit, methodologically justified component of the research and is described transparently. Decorative or illustrative AI-generated material must not be presented as clinical, experimental, or observational evidence.

7. Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants, identifiable human information, health records, biological materials, digital behavioural data, or other person-level data must be conducted in accordance with applicable ethical principles, laws, institutional requirements, and the Declaration of Helsinki.

Before the study begins, authors must obtain approval from an appropriate independent research ethics committee or institutional review board unless a valid exemption applies.

The manuscript must report:

The full name of the approving ethics committee or institutional review board
The approval or reference number
The date of approval where required
The informed-consent procedure
Any waiver of consent or ethical review and the basis for that waiver
Relevant privacy, confidentiality, and data-protection safeguards

The journal may request ethics approval letters, consent documentation, study protocols, data-use agreements, or other supporting records. Approval by an ethics committee does not prevent the editors from independently assessing whether the research appears ethically acceptable.

Vulnerable Populations

Research involving children, people with impaired decision-making capacity, economically or socially disadvantaged groups, refugees, prisoners, patients in dependent relationships, or other potentially vulnerable populations must include appropriate safeguards and a clear ethical justification.

The inclusion of vulnerable groups must be scientifically necessary and must not involve exploitation, coercion, unjustified exclusion, or disproportionate risk.

8. Informed Consent, Privacy, and Consent for Publication

Participants have a right to privacy and confidentiality. Identifying information must not be published unless it is scientifically necessary and valid written consent for publication has been obtained.

Identifiable information may include:

Names, initials, identification numbers, or record numbers
Facial or other recognisable images
Voice recordings or videos
Detailed clinical histories
Rare diagnoses or combinations of circumstances
Dates, locations, occupations, or family information that permit re-identification
Genomic or biometric information

Masking only the eye region of a facial image is not normally sufficient to ensure anonymity. Removing names may also be insufficient where the remaining information permits identification.

Where consent for publication is required, authors must confirm that the participant or authorised representative reviewed the material intended for publication and understood that it may be available online worldwide.

Consent documents should normally be retained securely by the authors or their institution. The journal may request written confirmation that appropriate consent has been obtained but should not ordinarily receive unnecessary identifiable patient documentation.

9. Research Involving Animals

Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international standards for animal care and use.

The manuscript must identify:

The approving animal ethics committee or relevant authority
The approval or protocol number
The species, strain, sex, age, and relevant biological characteristics
Housing and welfare arrangements
Anaesthesia, analgesia, and humane endpoints where applicable
Measures taken to minimise pain, distress, and the number of animals used

Authors should follow the ARRIVE reporting guidelines where applicable. The journal may reject research where the scientific justification, welfare safeguards, or ethical approval is inadequate.

10. Clinical-Trial Registration and Reporting

Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible and recognised clinical-trial registry before enrolment of the first participant.

The manuscript must provide:

The registry name
The registration number
The registration date
A link to the public registration record
An explanation of any retrospective registration
A disclosure of material differences between the registered protocol and the completed study

Trial reports should identify prespecified primary and secondary outcomes and disclose protocol amendments. Selective omission, addition, or switching of outcomes without explanation is unacceptable.

Authors must follow appropriate reporting guidelines, including CONSORT or CONSORT-AI where applicable, and should provide the protocol, statistical analysis plan, and data-sharing statement.

11. Data, Code, Models, and Research Materials

Research findings must be supported by accurate, sufficiently documented, and appropriately governed data and materials.

All research articles must include a Data Availability Statement explaining:

Whether supporting data are publicly available
The repository and persistent identifier
Any ethical, legal, privacy, security, licensing, or commercial restrictions
The conditions and procedure for requesting access
Whether code, protocols, prompts, model documentation, model weights, analysis plans, or other materials are available

Authors are encouraged to deposit non-sensitive data, code, protocols, software, model cards, analysis scripts, and supplementary materials in trusted repositories.

Authors must not publicly release identifiable, re-identifiable, confidential, or unlawfully obtained health data. Claims that data are anonymous must be appropriate to the nature of the data and current re-identification risks.

The journal may request access to underlying data, code, original images, audit trails, model outputs, consent records, or analytical documentation when necessary to evaluate a submission or investigate a concern. Unreasonable refusal to provide relevant evidence may affect editorial decisions.

12. Data Fabrication, Falsification, and Selective Reporting

Fabrication is the creation of data, observations, participants, records, quotations, results, or other evidence that did not exist.

Falsification includes manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, images, data, code, models, or analyses so that the research record is inaccurately represented.

Prohibited conduct includes:

Inventing participants, observations, interviews, datasets, or outcomes
Changing or omitting data without valid methodological justification
Selectively reporting outcomes to create a misleading impression
Misrepresenting exploratory analyses as prespecified
Concealing exclusions, missing data, failed experiments, or model errors
Manipulating data partitions to exaggerate model performance
Allowing training and test data to overlap without disclosure
Misrepresenting internal validation as external validation
Suppressing clinically relevant adverse events or safety failures

Legitimate data cleaning, transformation, exclusion, imputation, image adjustment, and analytical decisions must be methodologically justified, documented, and reported transparently.

13. Image and Multimedia Integrity

Images, figures, audio, video, waveforms, scans, diagnostic outputs, and other visual or multimedia materials must accurately represent the underlying evidence.

Authors must not:

Add, remove, move, obscure, duplicate, or selectively enhance features in a misleading manner
Combine images from different experiments without clear separation and explanation
Use inappropriate contrast, brightness, colour, filtering, cropping, or compression to alter interpretation
Reuse the same image to represent different samples, conditions, participants, or time points
Present synthetic or reconstructed material as an original clinical or experimental observation

Adjustments applied uniformly to an entire image may be acceptable when they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent information. Image assembly, enhancement, segmentation, reconstruction, and AI-assisted modification must be disclosed where relevant.

The journal may request original, unprocessed, uncropped, or higher-resolution files and associated metadata.

14. Conflicts of Interest and Funding

All participants in the publication process—including authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, guest editors, and relevant publisher personnel—must disclose relationships or activities that could influence or reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgement.

Relevant interests may include:

Employment, consultancy, or advisory roles
Research grants or institutional support
Honoraria, speaking fees, or travel support
Stock ownership, options, or other financial interests
Patents, licences, royalties, or intellectual-property interests
Paid expert testimony
Personal, familial, supervisory, or collaborative relationships
Academic competition or professional disputes
Political, ideological, or institutional commitments
Involvement in the development or commercialisation of a product or technology evaluated in the manuscript

Disclosure of an interest does not automatically imply wrongdoing or disqualify a manuscript. Transparency allows editors, reviewers, and readers to evaluate its relevance.

Authors must identify all funding sources and grant numbers and explain the role of funders or sponsors in:

Study design
Data collection
Data access
Analysis and interpretation
Manuscript preparation
The decision to submit for publication

Authors must retain appropriate access to the study data and freedom to analyse, interpret, and publish the findings. Agreements that allow a sponsor to suppress, distort, or control publication are incompatible with editorial independence.

15. Citation and Reference Integrity

Citations must accurately represent the content and evidentiary value of the cited source. Authors are responsible for verifying every reference against the original publication.

Prohibited citation practices include:

Fabricated or non-existent references
Citing a source that does not support the associated claim
Misrepresenting a preprint as peer-reviewed evidence
Concealing the retracted or corrected status of a source
Excessive self-citation without scholarly justification
Coercive or reciprocal citation arrangements
Citation cartels or coordinated citation manipulation
Adding irrelevant references to influence citation metrics

References and in-text citations must follow the PSG Author–Date Citation Format. Automated citation tools, reference managers, and artificial-intelligence systems may assist with formatting but do not replace manual verification by the authors.

16. Peer-Review Ethics

The journal uses double-anonymous peer review as its standard procedure. Reviewers must provide independent, objective, evidence-based, constructive, and confidential assessments.

Reviewers must:

Accept assignments only within their competence
Disclose actual or perceived competing interests
Protect manuscript confidentiality
Complete reviews within the agreed period
Distinguish essential concerns from optional preferences
Avoid discriminatory, hostile, defamatory, or personally directed language
Avoid coercive citation requests
Notify the editor confidentially of suspected misconduct

Reviewers must not use unpublished information, data, methods, code, models, or ideas for personal, academic, institutional, or commercial advantage.

Reviewers must not share or delegate a manuscript without prior editorial permission. They must not upload confidential material to public or third-party artificial-intelligence systems where confidentiality and data protection cannot be assured.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. Final decisions remain the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief or an authorised handling editor.

17. Editorial Responsibilities

Editors must evaluate manuscripts fairly, independently, consistently, and confidentially.

Editors are responsible for:

Protecting the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts
Selecting independent and qualified reviewers
Managing competing interests
Protecting authors and reviewers from discrimination or retaliation
Assessing ethical and research-integrity concerns
Ensuring that editorial decisions are evidence-based and documented
Correcting the scholarly record where necessary
Recusing themselves from manuscripts involving a relevant conflict

Editors must not use unpublished information obtained through the editorial process for personal benefit or disclose it to unauthorised persons.

Submissions by Editors and Board Members

Editors and editorial board members may submit manuscripts but receive no preferential treatment. Such submissions must be managed by an independent editor who has no relevant conflict. The submitting editor must not participate in reviewer selection, editorial discussion, or the final decision.

18. Publisher Responsibilities and Editorial Independence

Panorama Scholarly Group supports the journal’s editorial infrastructure while respecting the Editor-in-Chief’s authority over editorial content and publication decisions.

The publisher must not require the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript for commercial, political, personal, institutional, or reputational reasons.

Editorial decisions must remain independent of:

Article processing charges or other fees
Advertising or sponsorship
Commercial partnerships
Author purchasing power
Institutional status
Potential publicity or citation performance

The payment or waiver of a publication fee does not guarantee acceptance and must not influence peer review.

19. Preprints, Conference Materials, and Prior Dissemination

Posting a manuscript on a recognised non-commercial preprint server does not normally prevent consideration, provided that the preprint is disclosed at submission.

Authors must provide:

The preprint title
The server or repository
The persistent identifier
The date of posting
A description of material differences between the preprint and submitted manuscript where relevant

Authors should update the preprint record after journal publication by adding a citation and link to the final article where permitted.

Prior presentation at a conference or publication of an abstract may be acceptable if disclosed. Full conference proceedings, reports, working papers, theses, or other prior outputs will be evaluated for substantive overlap.

20. Copyright, Permissions, and Intellectual Property

Authors must respect copyright, database rights, software licences, privacy rights, contractual restrictions, and other intellectual-property obligations.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce or adapt:

Previously published figures or tables
Photographs, illustrations, or maps
Questionnaires, scales, or assessment instruments
Substantial quotations
Software, code, databases, or proprietary model outputs
Third-party multimedia material

All permissions and required acknowledgements must be provided before publication. Material available online is not necessarily free of copyright or licensing restrictions.

21. Allegations of Misconduct

The journal takes credible concerns seriously, whether raised by authors, reviewers, readers, research participants, institutions, funders, whistleblowers, or other parties.

Concerns may relate to:

Plagiarism or duplicate publication
Data fabrication or falsification
Image or multimedia manipulation
Authorship irregularities
Undisclosed conflicts of interest
Ethics approval or consent deficiencies
Clinical-trial registration irregularities
Peer-review manipulation
Paper mills or purchased manuscripts
Fabricated references
Inappropriate or undisclosed AI use
Privacy, confidentiality, or patient-safety concerns

Allegations should be supported by specific information or evidence where possible. The journal will not dismiss a concern solely because it is submitted anonymously, although the available evidence must be sufficient to permit assessment.

Investigation Procedure

Depending on the nature of the concern, the journal may:

Conduct a preliminary confidential assessment.
Request an explanation and supporting documentation from the authors.
Consult independent experts, reviewers, or research-integrity advisers.
Request original data, code, images, protocols, ethics records, or authorship documentation.
Pause peer review or publication.
Contact the authors’ institution, ethics committee, funder, registry, or other responsible authority.
Publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other notice where necessary.

The journal will seek to act fairly, proportionately, confidentially, and without presuming guilt before relevant evidence has been assessed.

Research institutions ordinarily have primary responsibility for investigating the conduct of their researchers. The journal is responsible for protecting and correcting the published record and may act independently where necessary.

22. Corrections, Expressions of Concern, Retractions, and Removal

The journal will correct the scholarly record when material errors, omissions, or ethical concerns are identified after publication.

Corrections

A correction may be issued where an error affects the accuracy, interpretation, attribution, or completeness of an article but does not invalidate its principal findings.

Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be issued when substantial doubts exist about the integrity or reliability of an article but:

An investigation is incomplete
Evidence is inconclusive
An institution has not completed its investigation
Immediate notice is necessary to protect readers or patients

Retractions

An article may be retracted where findings are unreliable because of serious error or misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical research, serious authorship or peer-review manipulation, duplicate publication, or another defect that materially invalidates the work.

A retracted article will normally remain accessible as part of the scholarly record but will be clearly marked as retracted. The retraction notice should identify the article, explain the reason for retraction, distinguish error from misconduct where possible, and be linked bidirectionally with the original publication.

Article Removal

Removal of an article is reserved for exceptional circumstances, such as:

A serious legal requirement
A severe and immediate risk to public or patient safety
Unlawful disclosure of confidential or personal information
Content whose continued availability would cause serious harm that cannot be mitigated through retraction

Where removal occurs, a public record explaining that the article was removed and the general reason will normally remain available, subject to legal and privacy constraints.

23. Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, and other affected parties may submit a complaint concerning editorial conduct, peer review, publication ethics, policy application, or journal procedures.

A complaint should:

Identify the manuscript or article where applicable
Describe the relevant events clearly
Identify the policy or procedure believed to have been breached
Provide supporting documentation where available
Use professional and non-defamatory language

Editorial appeals must identify a material procedural, factual, methodological, or ethical error in the decision-making process. Mere disagreement with an editorial judgement does not by itself establish grounds for appeal.

Complaints and appeals should, where practicable, be considered by an editor or responsible person who was not primarily involved in the matter. One formal appeal is normally permitted for each manuscript.

24. Sanctions and Editorial Actions

Where a breach of publication ethics is substantiated, the journal may take one or more proportionate actions:

Request clarification or correction
Return or reject a manuscript
Withdraw an acceptance decision
Publish a correction, expression of concern, or retraction
Reject related manuscripts under consideration
Restrict future submissions for a defined period
Remove an individual from reviewer or editorial roles
Notify co-authors, institutions, ethics committees, funders, registries, or other journals
Refer suspected unlawful conduct to an appropriate authority

Actions will be determined according to the seriousness of the issue, available evidence, risk to patients or the public, effect on the scholarly record, intent, cooperation, recurrence, and applicable ethical or legal requirements.

25. Confidentiality, Whistleblowers, and Non-Retaliation

The journal will handle ethics concerns as confidentially as reasonably possible while permitting fair assessment and necessary communication with relevant parties.

The identity of a complainant or whistleblower will not ordinarily be disclosed unnecessarily. However, complete confidentiality cannot be guaranteed where disclosure is required by law, necessary for a fair investigation, or essential to prevent serious harm.

Retaliation against individuals who raise concerns in good faith is unacceptable. Knowingly false, malicious, harassing, or defamatory allegations may themselves constitute misconduct.

26. Special Issues, Supplements, and Guest Editors

Special issues, thematic collections, conference supplements, and commissioned content are subject to the same ethical, peer-review, authorship, disclosure, data, and editorial-independence standards as regular issues.

Guest editors must:

Disclose relevant competing interests
Apply the journal’s policies consistently
Use independent and qualified reviewers
Recuse themselves from conflicted submissions
Protect confidential information
Avoid coercive citation, preferential treatment, and undisclosed commercial influence

The Editor-in-Chief or an independent designated editor retains final authority over manuscripts handled through a special issue or guest-edited collection.

27. Post-Publication Discussion

The journal welcomes responsible scholarly discussion concerning published articles. Readers may submit letters, comments, corrections, or evidence-based concerns.

Post-publication criticism should address the research, evidence, methods, interpretation, or ethical issues rather than the personal characteristics of the authors.

Where a substantive concern is raised, the journal may invite the authors to respond and may seek independent evaluation. Publication of a response does not prevent further correction or investigation where warranted.

28. Policy Review and Applicable Standards

This policy may be revised to reflect changes in publication ethics, medical research, artificial intelligence, data governance, privacy law, clinical regulation, and recognised international standards.

Where this policy does not address a specific situation, the journal may consult relevant guidance from COPE, ICMJE, WAME, the EQUATOR Network, research institutions, ethics committees, legal advisers, or other competent authorities.

Relevant external resources include:

Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to consult the most recent version of the journal’s policies and all applicable ethical and reporting requirements.