Open Access Policy

The International Journal of Medical, Healthcare and Life Sciences (IJMHLS) is committed to the global dissemination of scientific knowledge through an open-access publishing model. All published articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, allowing researchers, healthcare professionals, institutions, policymakers, and the public to access, read, download, share, and use scholarly work without subscription barriers.

IJMHLS follows a Gold Open Access model. This means that the final published version of each accepted article is freely accessible through the journal website. The journal supports the wide dissemination of medical, healthcare, biomedical, public health, and life sciences research to encourage academic collaboration, scientific progress, and evidence-based practice.

Published articles are available without reader registration, subscription charges, or access fees.

Article Processing Charges (APC)

IJMHLS does not charge authors any article processing charges.

There are:.

No submission fees
No peer-review fees
No article processing charges
No publication fees
No hidden charges
No access fees for readers

All accepted articles are published free of charge.

If IJMHLS introduces any author fees in the future, the fee policy will be clearly updated on the journal website before submission. Any future fees will be stated transparently and will not influence editorial decisions, peer review, acceptance, or rejection of manuscripts

Creative Commons License

All open access articles published in the International Journal of Medical, Healthcare and Life Sciences (IJMHLS) are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Under this license, users are free to:

Share, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial use

Users must follow these conditions:

Appropriate credit must be given to the original author(s) and source
A link to the Creative Commons license must be provided
Any changes made to the original work must be clearly indicated

Copyright Policy

Authors retain copyright of their published work. By publishing with IJMHLS, authors grant the journal the right to publish, distribute, and make the article available through the journal website and related scholarly platforms.

All published content is freely accessible immediately upon publication. Users may view, download, copy, distribute, reproduce, and adapt the material in any medium or format, provided that the original author(s), article title, journal name, source, and license are properly cited.

Authors are permitted to:

Share their published articles in institutional repositories
Upload published articles to academic networking platforms
Use published content for teaching, educational, and research purposes
Distribute and reuse articles in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 license, provided proper credit is given

This copyright policy is intended to support open scholarly communication while protecting proper attribution of authorship and source

Publication Ethics Statement

IJMHLS is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, and responsible scholarly communication. The journal follows internationally recognized publishing ethics principles and supports ethical conduct by authors, editors, reviewers, and the editorial office.

All manuscripts submitted to IJMHLS must be original, properly referenced, ethically prepared, and not under consideration by another journal at the same time. The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, or other forms of publication misconduct.

IJMHLS expects all parties involved in the publication process to act with honesty, transparency, confidentiality, fairness, and respect for academic standards. COPE core practices include areas such as misconduct, authorship, complaints and appeals, conflicts of interest, data and reproducibility, ethical oversight, peer review, and post-publication corrections.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submitted work meets ethical, scientific, and academic standards.

Authors must:

Submit original and unpublished work
Ensure that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere
Avoid plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, and falsification
Properly acknowledge all sources, data, methods, and prior work
Provide accurate authorship and contributor information
Disclose all conflicts of interest
Disclose all funding sources and financial support
Obtain ethical approval where required
Provide informed consent where applicable
Protect participant privacy and confidentiality
Report data, methods, findings, and limitations accurately
Disclose the use of artificial intelligence tools where applicable
Cooperate with the editorial office during peer review and post-publication inquiries

Authors remain fully responsible for the integrity, accuracy, and originality of the submitted and published work.

Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for maintaining the quality, fairness, confidentiality, and integrity of the editorial process.

Editors must:

Evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit, originality, relevance, and journal scope
Ensure fair and unbiased editorial decisions
Maintain confidentiality of submitted manuscripts
Avoid and disclose conflicts of interest
Select qualified reviewers with relevant expertise
Address ethical concerns, complaints, and publication misconduct
Protect the integrity of the peer-review process
Ensure that editorial decisions are not influenced by commercial, personal, institutional, or political interests
Support corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern where necessary

Editorial decisions are based on the manuscript’s quality, scientific contribution, ethical compliance, reviewer feedback, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers play an important role in supporting the quality and credibility of published research.

Reviewers must:

Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts and review materials
Provide objective, constructive, and respectful feedback
Evaluate manuscripts based on scientific quality, originality, methodology, clarity, and relevance
Declare any conflicts of interest before accepting a review invitation
Avoid using unpublished manuscript content for personal advantage
Inform the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, ethical issues, or major methodological concerns
Complete reviews within the agreed timeline where possible

Reviewers should not review manuscripts where personal, financial, academic, institutional, or professional conflicts may affect their judgment.

Research Ethics and Human Subjects

Research involving human participants, human data, animals, clinical material, or identifiable personal information must comply with relevant institutional, national, and international ethical standards.

Authors must include the following information where applicable:

Name of the ethics approval committee or institutional review board
Ethics approval reference number
Date of approval, where available
Informed consent statement
Consent for publication where identifiable participant information is included
Animal research approval details, where applicable

Clinical studies involving identifiable participants must protect participant privacy and confidentiality. Identifying information, images, or clinical details should not be published unless necessary for scientific understanding and unless written informed consent for publication has been obtained.

For studies involving human participants, authors should confirm that the research was conducted in accordance with applicable ethical principles and institutional requirements.

Clinical trials submitted to IJMHLS should include trial registration information where applicable. Authors should provide the name of the trial registry, registration number, and date of registration in the manuscript.

Case reports, clinical images, and studies involving identifiable patient information must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was obtained. Authors should remove nonessential identifying details unless they are scientifically necessary.

Plagiarism Policy

All submissions to IJMHLS may be screened using plagiarism detection or similarity-checking software. Similarity reports are reviewed by the editorial team and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions.

Manuscripts may be rejected, returned for revision, corrected, retracted, or investigated if they include:

Plagiarism
Duplicate publication
Text recycling without proper citation
Fabricated or falsified data
Manipulated images or figures
Misleading references
Citation manipulation
Undisclosed use of third-party content
Other unethical publishing practices

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all sources are properly cited and that the submitted work is original and ethically prepared. Plagiarism must be under 10%.

AI Usage Policy

Authors must disclose the use of artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, data analysis, language editing, image generation, content generation, or any other part of the research or writing process.

AI tools:

Cannot be listed as authors
Cannot replace human scientific interpretation, judgment, or critical analysis
Must be used responsibly and transparently
Must not be used to fabricate data, citations, images, findings, or reviewer suggestions
Must not be used in a way that violates privacy, confidentiality, copyright, or research ethics

Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content, including any material prepared or assisted by AI tools. The use of AI tools must be disclosed in the manuscript where relevant. AI must be under 5%.

Preprints Policy

IJMHLS may consider manuscripts that have previously been posted on recognized preprint servers, provided that full disclosure is made during submission and the manuscript has not been formally published in a peer-reviewed journal elsewhere.

Because preprints are non-peer-reviewed versions, publicly releasing them does not constitute prior publication and will not prejudice the journal’s formal editorial or peer-review process. Furthermore, as these manuscripts are made freely available to the public, this practice serves as an important contribution to green open access.

Authors must provide details of the preprint, including the preprint title, server name, DOI or link, and posting date where applicable.

Posting a manuscript as a preprint does not guarantee acceptance by IJMHLS. Submitted manuscripts will undergo the journal’s standard editorial screening and peer-review process.

If the manuscript is accepted and published, authors should update the preprint record with a link to the final published article.

Funding Disclosure

IJMHLS promotes transparency in research funding. Authors must disclose all sources of financial support, grants, institutional funding, sponsorship, or other support related to the submitted work.

Funding sources should be clearly stated in the acknowledgment or funding section of the manuscript.

If no funding was received, authors should include the following statement:

“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

Authors must also disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest that may be related to the research, interpretation, writing, or publication of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest that could influence, or appear to influence, the research, review, or editorial decision-making process.

Conflicts of interest may include:

Financial relationships
Employment or consultancy relationships
Institutional affiliations
Personal relationships
Academic competition
Funding or sponsorship interests
Intellectual property or patent interests

Editors and reviewers with a conflict of interest should not handle or review the manuscript. Authors must include a conflict of interest statement in the manuscript. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state:

“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Archiving and Repositories

IJMHLS is committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of published content. The journal maintains digital backups of published articles and will clearly list any active archiving services, repositories, preservation systems, or indexing platforms on the journal website once they are formally implemented.

Authors may deposit accepted or published versions of their articles in institutional repositories, subject repositories, personal websites, or academic networking platforms, provided that the original article, journal name, source, and license are properly cited.

IJMHLS will not claim inclusion in any repository, archive, or indexing database unless such inclusion has been officially confirmed.

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

IJMHLS is committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly record. The journal may issue corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern when necessary.

A correction may be issued when a published article contains an error that does not invalidate the overall findings.

A retraction may be issued in cases involving unreliable findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated data, falsified data, unethical research, serious authorship issues, or other major publication misconduct.

An expression of concern may be issued when serious concerns are raised but an investigation is ongoing or inconclusive.

Correction, retraction, and expression of concern notices will remain linked to the original article where applicable

Complaints and Appeals

Authors may submit an appeal if they believe that an editorial decision was based on a misunderstanding, procedural error, conflict of interest, or incorrect interpretation of the manuscript.

Appeals must include a clear explanation and supporting evidence. Appeals will be reviewed by the editor or by another appropriate editorial representative where possible. The appeal process does not guarantee a change in editorial decision.

Complaints related to editorial conduct, peer review, publication ethics, published content, or journal processes may be submitted to the editorial office. IJMHLS will handle complaints and appeals fairly, confidentially, and in accordance with publication ethics principles.

Data Availability and Reproducibility

Authors should present research methods, data, materials, and analysis clearly enough to allow evaluation and, where possible, reproducibility.

Where applicable, authors may be asked to provide:

Raw data
Supplementary files
Ethical approval documents
Trial registration information
Data availability statements
Additional methodological details

Authors should not fabricate, manipulate, or selectively report data. Any restrictions on data availability should be clearly explained in the manuscript.

Subscription and Reader Access

IJMHLS follows an open-access publishing model. Readers can access all published articles for free on the journal website without subscription charges or access fees.

The journal does not require readers to pay for access to published articles.

If print copies, special issues, institutional services, or additional publication formats are introduced in the future, details will be clearly provided on the journal website.