Please note that since October 2024 there is an obligatory charge (= 120 Euro/500 PLN) for each manuscript submitted and accepted for publication in Journal of Health Inequalities.

Detailed information is available here "Article Processing Charge (APC)"

Aims and scope

The Journal of Health Inequalities seeks research and review articles in the fields of public health and medical care. We welcome articles in the areas of public health research, teaching, practice and policy; we are also interested in interventions promoting individual and community health, health education, and prevention of chronic and acute disease. Of particular interest to us are papers addressing health inequalities and differences between regions, countries and different social, economic and demographic groups. Papers must be submitted to the Editorial Office on-line via:

http://www.editorialsystem.com/jhi/login/

Ethical requirements

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (concerning the ethical principles for the medical community and forbidding releasing the name of the patient, initials or the hospital evidence number) and with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). The authors presenting case studies are obligated not to disclose patients' personal data. Regarding photographs, in case of any doubt that the picture inadequately protects the patient's anonymity his consent is required for publication.

Clinical trials

Journal of Health Inequalities is published in accordance with ICMJE policies and recommendations. The ICMJE requires - and recommends that all medical journal editors require - registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for article publication.

The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome. Health-related interventions are those used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome; examples include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, educational programs, dietary interventions, quality improvement interventions, and process-of-care changes. Health outcomes are any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events.

The ICMJE accepts publicly accessible registration in any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) that includes the minimum acceptable 24-item trial registration data set or in ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP.

In accordance with the ICMJE recommendations, the Editors of Journal of Health Inequalities require authors to provide all necessary information regarding the registered study when submitting the article for publication: name of the register, Main ID, Public Title, Date of Registration. The data provided by the author are verified by the editors.

More information on this can be found here https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

Source: ICMJE, Clinical Trials, https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

As part of the editorial process, all the submitted manuscripts are screened for plagiarism.

Duplicate publication, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work, or another author, without providing the appropriate references.

The manuscripts in which the plagiarism is detected are subject to additional individual assessment based on a professional report from iThenticate.

Conflict of interest

Authors are expected to describe sources of the research funding, a role of the potential sponsor in planning, executing and analysis of the study, and the influence (bias) the funding organization had on the content of the article. Other relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) providing potential sources of conflict of interest in relation to the submitted article should also be revealed.

Ghostwriting, guest authorship and plagiarism policy

Journal of Health Inequalities has procedures in place to prevent ghostwriting, guest authorship, and plagiarism.

Preparation of manuscripts

The paper should be written in English and be communicative, clear and concise, while maintaining the classic layout.

Useful links:

https://icmje.org/recommendations/browse/manuscript-preparation/preparing-for-submission.html

https://www.equator-network.org/

Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's requirements will be sent back to the authors for correction or rejected.

Original papers

Original papers should be organized in a standard form with the following separate sections: Title, Abstract, Key words (according to MeSH terms), Introduction, Material and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Disclosures and acknowledgements, References, Contributions¹. Original papers should describe new data derived from a sizable study group or in-depth qualitative research. The text should be up to 5,000 words, which does not include an abstract of no more than 300 words, a maximum of 5 tables and/or figures (total), and up to 40 references. Additional tables, figures, and other necessary materials (e.g. questionnaires) can be submitted in a separate file as a supplementary data to Webappendix.

Special articles

Special articles should be associated with a particular issue of scientific importance. The text should be up to 3,000 words long, which does not include an abstract of no more than 300 words, a maximum of 3 tables and/or figures (total) and up to 30 references. It’s required to include Disclosures and acknowledgements, References, and Contributions². Special articles can address a health inequality problem previously covered in JHI. They can also discuss a particular recent public health event or scientific publication.

Editorials

Editorials should provide commentary concerning an article in the present issue of the Journal of Health Inequalities or be associated with a particular problem of scientific importance. Editorials should be up to 1,000 words long with no more than 15 references. They should not have an abstract. If more than one author, please include Contributions¹. 

Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor may report original data or comment articles recently published in the JHI. The text should be up to 500 words. All Letters to the editor are subject to editing and possible abridgment. Letters that report original data will be fully peer-reviewed. If more than one author, please include Contributions¹. 

Review

Reviews should bring together important information on a topic of general interest to health inequalities. The text should be up to 5,000 words long, which does not include an abstract of no more than 300 words, a maximum of 5 tables and/or figures (total) and up to 50 references. Additional tables, figures, and other necessary materials (e.g. questionnaires) can be submitted in a separate file as a supplementary data to Webappendix. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines. If more than one author, please include Contributions¹.

Webappendix

Additional data and materials can be uploaded in a separate file to Webappendix. Please remember that the larger the file size the longer it will take readers to download. For this reason, please limit your files to 10 MB. The Journal can accept the following formats:

Plain text (.txt)

HTML page (.html)

JPEG image (.jpg)

GIF image (.gif)

Adobe PDF (.pdf)

Excel spreadsheet (.xls)

ZIP compressed file (.zip)

Word document (.doc)

Tiff image (.tif)

PowerPoint presentation (.ppt)

Encapsulated Postscript document (.eps)

Mp3 file (.mp3)

QuickTime video

Tables

Tables should be numbered according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all tables. Each table should be provided in a separate file.

Illustrations

Each figure should be provided in a separate file, not included in the text. Figures should preferably be provided in the TIF or EPS format. JPG is also acceptable. All figures, whether photographs, graphs or diagrams, should be numbered consecutively throughout.

References

The reference list should be arranged in the order in which the citations appear in the text. References should only be made to published titles. Title of articles published in other languages than English should include English translation in square brackets.

Journal citation:

Sturdee DW, Pines A; International Menopause Society Writing Group, et al. Updated IMS recommendations on postmenopausal hormone therapy and preventive strategies for midlife health. Climacteric 2011; 14: 302-320.

Journal with a supplement number:

Polgár C, Fodor J, Orosz Z, et al. Electron and brachytherapy boost in the conservative treatment of stage I-II breast cancer: 5-year results of the randomized Budapest boost trial. Radiother Oncol 2002; 62 (Suppl 1): S15.

Journal with a part number:

McCormick MC, Kass B, Elixhauser A, et al. Annual report on access to and utilization of health care for children and youth in the United States: 1999. Pediatrics 2000; 105 (1 Pt. 3): 219-230.

Publication in other languages:

Moskalewicz J, Wieczorek Ł. Dostępność, konsumpcja alkoholu i konsekwencje picia – trzy dekady doświadczeń [Afford­ability and availability, alcohol consumption and consequences of drinking – three decades of experiences]. Alkoholizm i Narkomania 2009; 22: 305-337.

Online citation:

Keisch M, Arthur D, Patel R, et al. American Brachytherapy Society Breast Brachytherapy Task Group; 

Available from: http://www.americanbrachytherapy.org/guidelines/abs_breast_brachytherapy_taskgroup.pdf. (accessed: 24 May 2021).

Electronic publish ahead of print/DOI citation:

Kanis J, McCloskey EV, Johansson H, et al. European guidance for the diagnosis and management of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Osteopor Int 2012; doi: 10.1007/s00 198-012-2074-y.

Book:

Bidzan M. Jakość życia pacjentek z różnym stopniem nasilenia wysiłkowego nietrzymania moczu. Impuls, Kraków 2008.

Chapter from a book:

Van Leeuwen FE, Travis LB. Second cancers. In: Cancer: Principles and Practice of Oncology. Devita VT (ed.). 7th ed. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia 2005; 2575-2602.

In press:

Eisenberger MA, Blumenstein BA, Crawford ED, et al. Bilateral orchiectomy with or without flutamide for metastatic prostate cancer. N Engl J Med [In press].

Review Process

Registered manuscripts:

The registered manuscripts are sent to 2-3 independent experts for scientific evaluation. Submitted papers are accepted for publication after a positive opinion of the independent reviewers. Journal of Health Inequalities uses a double-blind review process in which authors do not know the identity of their reviewers, nor do the reviewers know the identities of the authors. The evaluation process usually takes 2-4 months.

Conference papers:

Conference papers published in the journal come from only from conferences where materials are reviewed by the Scientific Committees of the conference before being presented. This means that they have undergone a review process by dedicated experts. Based on experts' opinions, they are qualified for publication.

¹As in example: “AX, BX, CX – took part in preparing the concept of the article; AY collected data; BY,CY analysed data; KPZ, BG wrote the first draft of the article; CX critically revised it. All authors approved the final version of publication”