Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

The Editorial Board and Reviewers of the Turkish Bulletin of Hygiene and Experimental Biology adhere to the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Council of Science Editors (CSE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE), the US National Library of Medicine (NLM), the World Medical Association (WMA), and National Information Standards Organization (NISO).

For Authors; as journal's policy, an approval of research protocols by an ethics committee in accordance with international agreements “WMA Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (last updated: October 2013, Fortaleza, Brazil)” ,“Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals (8th edition, 2011)” and/or “International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals (2012)” is required for all research studies. If the submitted manuscript does not include ethics committee approval, it will not be processed for evaluation.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY
Turkish Bulletin of Hygiene and Experimental Biology’s editorial review process is in accordance with the Good Editorial Practice set by international editorial organizations (ICMJE, EASE, WAME, COPE, CSE, …). WAME indicates that “conflict of interest exists when an author, reviewer, or editor in the publication process (submission of manuscripts, peer review, editorial decisions, and communication between authors, reviewers and editors) has a competing interest that could unduly influence his or her responsibilities (academic honesty, unbiased conduct and reporting of research, and integrity of decisions or judgments) in the publication process”. Turkish Bulletin of Hygiene and Experimental Biology requires that each author, reviewer, and editor must disclose to the editor-in-chief any conflict of interest related to family, personal, financial, political or religious issues as well as any competing interest outlined above at the WAME’s definition. Whether or not a conflict of interest and financial support exist, they must be declared at the end of the manuscripts. Authors should not contact any of the section editors during the review process. All necessary information regarding the process of a manuscript can be obtained from the editorial office. However, the names of the handling editor and the reviewers are not given to the author(s). Due to the Turkish Bulletin of Hygiene and Experimental Biology’s double-blinded review principles, the names of authors and reviewers are not known to the other.

PUBLICATION POLICY and PEER REVIEW PROCESS
Turkish Bulletin of Hygiene and Experimental Biology (TBHEB) is published in Turkish and English by Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Health General Directorate of Public Health which processing through double-blind peer review. The journal covers clinical and experimental research articles on subjects from all medical areas, review articles, case reports, letters to the editor, manuscripts on historical evolution of diseases and medicine and content on ethical problems. Articles are accepted only by online submission. The basic features supposed to be in an article during assessment processes for the acceptance to journal are the contribution to the scientific literature and the originality.

All manuscripts are underwent an initial process by the Editors after the submission. Editors firstly evaluates whether the manuscript is prepared according to the journal’s manuscript submitting rules before peer review process. Manuscripts which are not appropriate for those rules will not be evaluated.

Then, two reviewers are assigned for manuscript evaluation. Reviewers are selected among specialists who also have publications in literature in the same medical field. Articles might be checked by the statistical editor in addition if needed. All manuscripts are also inspected for English grammatical and manuscript preparation rules. 20 days are given for reviewer and, if any corrections are required, the author(s) has 30 days to make the requested corrections. The Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, statistical editor and English language editor may make minor corrections to accepted manuscripts that do not change the main meaning of the manuscript.