Publication Ethics

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione is in line with the research ethics standards promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 

Authorship

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione requires the corresponding author to sign a document stating that all authors are aware that the manuscript has been submitted for publication to the journal and that the list of authors reflects their actual role in the study and in the drafting of the manuscript.

All authors are required to state their affiliation.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors of a paper.

Requests to change authors, accompanied by a valid reason, following the acceptance of the article must be sent to the Editorial Office at epiprev@inferenze.it, which will liaise with the Scientific Editors.

Submission

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione requires its section editors and reviewers to treat every submission with respect and the utmost discretion, emphasising that unpublished results must not be disclosed.

Authors are asked to declare that the manuscript has not already been published or submitted simultaneously to other journals.

Communication between authors, section editors and reviewers, and all documentation relating to the manuscript, is archived in the OJS3 submission system.

Plagiarism

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione assumes that submitted manuscripts are the authors’ original work, that all references used are correctly cited, and that the necessary permissions have been obtained for any reproduction of text, data, graphs, images or tables. Please see the document “Licenses and Copyright (for non open access articles”.

Conflicts of interest

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione requires authors (PDF form for authors) and reviewers (PDF form for reviewers) to sign a declaration regarding potential conflicts of interest and clearly states whether or not such conflicts exist in each submission.

Authors

Conflicts of interest arise when an author’s private interest could be seen as something that might have potentially influenced the research to such an extent that a reasonable observer might question whether that person’s behaviour or judgement was motivated by considerations relating to their own interests.

It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to check whether co-authors have any conflicts of interest and to complete the relevant forms, uploading them via the peer-review system at the time of submission.

At the end of the article, the following statements must be included:

• Conflicts of interest
• Funding
• Ethical approval.

See general instructions about Declarations.

Section editors

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione asks its section editors, when they are asked to oversee the peer-review process for one or more submissions, whether they have any conflicts of interest in this regard.

The journal has a select group of section editors. No section editor is pressured to accept or reject a manuscript for political or commercial reasons. All submissions receive the same standard of peer review.

Reviewers

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione requests that section editors assess any potential conflicts of interest among reviewers at the time of assignment. In the acceptance form in the OJS3 platform, reviewers must declare whether or not they have any conflicts of interest in relation to the work assigned to them. Reviewers are also sent a declaration form to state the absence of conflicts of interest.

Peer review process

Epidemiologia&Prevenzione employs a double-blind peer-review system: reviewers are not aware of the authors’ names or affiliations, nor are authors aware of the identities of the reviewers assigned to their manuscript. The point of contact between the two parties is the Section Editor responsible for the submission.

All submissions are reviewed by at least two independent experts with relevant expertise in the subject area.

The Section Editor evaluates the manuscript and the reviewers’ comments before making the final decision to accept or reject the contribution, always seeking the opinion of the Scientific Editors.

Ethic research

If the research presented required the approval of an ethics committee, the name of the committee and compliance with recognised standards (for example, the Declaration of Helsinki) must be stated.

Confidentiality

In the case of research involving human subjects, it is essential to ensure that no patient’s privacy has been breached without first obtaining informed consent. Any identifying information that could lead to the patient’s identity will be removed.