Journal Policies
Contents
Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement (PEMS) 4
Archiving & Digital Preservation Policy. 6
Self-Archiving (Green Open Access) Policy. 7
Ownership & Management Disclosure. 8
Privacy Policy and Data Protection Statement 8
Author Charges / Publication Fee Policy (APC) 9
Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy. 10
Open Access Policy
The Journal Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) is committed to immediate, free, and unrestricted access to scholarly research. All articles published in JPHFM are made available online immediately upon publication with no embargo period. The journal's open access approach is intended to support timely dissemination of evidence, strengthen transparency and reproducibility, and maximize the reach and impact of research across health, wellness, and community sciences.
JPHFM adopts an open access model aligned with internationally recognized open access principles. Users may access and use journal content for any lawful purpose, including reading, downloading, copying, distributing, printing, searching within the text, and linking to the full text of articles, without financial, legal, or technical barriers and without requesting prior permission from the publisher or authors, provided that appropriate attribution to the original work is maintained.
Copyright Policy
The Journal Public Health and Family Medicine(JPHFM) respects and protects authors' intellectual property rights and recognizes that authors should retain ownership of their scholarly work. Accordingly, all authors publishing in JPHFM retain full ownership of their articles, while the journal applies publishing and dissemination rights only to the extent required to publish, preserve, and index the scholarly record.
Author Copyright Ownership
Authors retain 100% copyright of their articles published in JPHFM. Upon acceptance and publication, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right to publish, archive, reproduce, and disseminate the work in all formats used by the journal and through lawful indexing, aggregation, and preservation services. JPHFM does not require authors to transfer copyright as a condition of publication.
License for Publication
All articles in JPHFM are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this licence, others may share, copy, redistribute, adapt, and build upon the work for any purpose, including commercial use, provided that proper attribution to the author(s) and citation to the original publication in JHWCR are maintained, a link to the license is provided, and any changes are indicated.
Author Rights After Publication
After publication, authors may share and reuse their work without requesting additional permission from the journal, provided that the original publication in JHWCR is properly cited and the CC BY 4.0 terms are respected. Authors may deposit all versions in institutional repositories, subject repositories, and personal or departmental websites, and may incorporate their article into books, theses, dissertations, and teaching or training materials.
Third-Party Copyright
Authors are responsible for obtaining appropriate written permission for any copyrighted third-party material included in a submission. If third-party material is not covered by CC BY 4.0, this must be explicitly indicated to prevent unintended reuse beyond the granted permissions.
Publisher Responsibilities
JPHFM , as published by Research loom (Private) Limited, is responsible for maintaining the integrity and availability of the scholarly record. The journal ensures long-term preservation of published content through its preservation arrangements, maintains accurate attribution to authors, and does not alter an author's content after publication except through clearly documented correction mechanisms and standard publishing practices.
Protection Against Misuse
JPHFM takes appropriate action in cases of plagiarism, unauthorized republication, systematic scraping, impersonation, or other forms of misuse that compromise authors' rights or the integrity of the journal. Where credible concerns are identified, the journal may issue formal notices, request removal from infringing platforms, and notify relevant hosting services or indexing providers as appropriate.
Peer Review Policy
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) applies a rigorous peer review process to safeguard scientific integrity, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, and editorial objectivity. JHWCR uses a double-blind peer review model in which author and reviewer identities are not disclosed to each other during the review process.
Peer Review Workflow — Step by Step
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Initial Submission Check — 0–3 days. Administrative screening, plagiarism check, scope fit, ethical declarations. |
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Editor-in-Chief / Handling Editor Screening — 3–7 days. Suitability, originality, methodology, desk rejection if warranted. |
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Reviewer Selection & Invitation — 7–10 days. Minimum two independent reviewers with relevant expertise. |
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Double-Blind Peer Review — 14–21 days. Scientific validity, methodology, analysis, ethics, novelty, reporting. |
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Editorial Decision — within ~5 days of receiving reviews. Accept / Minor Revision / Major Revision / Reject. |
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Revision Process — 7–21 days. Point-by-point response with tracked changes required. |
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Final Decision — 3–7 days. Acceptance upon satisfying all quality thresholds. |
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Production & Publication — Copyediting, typesetting, proof approval, biweekly issue publication. |
Reviewer Responsibilities
Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, and timely evaluations grounded in scholarly standards. They must treat manuscripts as confidential documents, avoid any use of manuscript content for personal advantage, and disclose conflicts of interest promptly. Reviewers must not upload any part of a manuscript into generative AI tools or third-party automated systems.
Plagiarism and Ethical Screening
All submissions are subject to similarity screening. As a general operational threshold, manuscripts with similarity above 15% (less than 5% from a single source) that includes unacceptable overlap may be declined.
Special Issues and Guest Editors
For special issues and guest-edited content, JPHFM applies the same peer review standards, anonymity safeguards, and editorial oversight as for regular biweekly issues. Guest editor submissions are handled through an independent pathway to avoid conflicts of interest.
Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement (PEMS)
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of ethical scholarly publishing and to protecting the integrity of the scientific record. JPHFM applies established international best practices for editorial governance, peer review, authorship accountability, research integrity, and post-publication stewardship.
Duties of Authors
1.1 Originality & Plagiarism: Authors must ensure all submitted work is original and any material derived from other sources is appropriately cited. Redundant publication, self-plagiarism, and unattributed copying are prohibited.
1.2 Data Accuracy & Integrity: Fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, and inappropriate manipulation of images or data are unacceptable. Methods must be described with sufficient clarity for replication.
1.3 Multiple or Duplicate Submission: Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. "Salami slicing" is prohibited.
1.4 Authorship Criteria: All listed authors must have made a substantial intellectual contribution. Gift, guest, and ghost authorship are not permitted.
1.5 Conflicts of Interest: All relationships that could influence the work must be disclosed, including financial interests, employment, patents, and personal relationships.
1.6 Ethical Approval and Participant Protection: Studies involving humans or animals must confirm compliance with applicable ethical standards, IRB/REC approval, and informed consent requirements.
1.7 Corrections, Retractions, and Cooperation: Authors must notify the journal of material errors and cooperate fully with editorial investigations.
1.8 Use of Generative AI: AI tools cannot be listed as authors. All AI-assisted content remains the full responsibility of the human authors.
Duties of Reviewers
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, provide objective assessments, disclose conflicts of interest, submit reviews on time, and never upload manuscript content to AI tools or third-party systems.
Duties of Editors
Editors make publication decisions based on scientific merit only, manage peer review objectively, protect confidentiality, handle misconduct allegations in an evidence-based manner, and issue corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions as warranted.
Duties of the Publisher
Research loom (Private) Limited supports editorial independence and the integrity of the scholarly record. The publisher does not interfere in editorial decisions regarding acceptance, rejection, or retraction, except to ensure that due process and policy consistency are maintained.
Retraction & Withdrawal Policy
An article may be retracted when there is clear evidence that findings are unreliable due to fabrication, falsification, major error, unethical research conduct, plagiarism, duplicate publication, or proven authorship misconduct. Retracted articles remain accessible but are clearly labeled as retracted. Withdrawal requests are generally considered only prior to acceptance and must be justified in writing.
Archiving & Digital Preservation Policy
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) is committed to ensuring permanent, secure, and reliable preservation of all published content. The journal's digital preservation strategy is designed to protect the scholarly record and to maintain long-term accessibility of articles even in circumstances such as technical disruption, cyber incidents, platform migration, or journal closure.
PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN)
JPHFM participates in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) as its primary long-term digital preservation mechanism. Through PKP PN, published content is preserved using an automated and distributed preservation approach designed for Open Journal Systems (OJS) journals, supporting redundancy across geographically distributed preservation nodes and reducing the risk of single-point failure.
Internet Archive (Wayback Machine)
LOCKSS
JPHFMparticipates in the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program, enabling libraries and institutions to collect, preserve, and provide access to journal content through a distributed peer-to-peer network.
CLOCKSS
JPHFM also participates in CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS), a dark archive that ensures long-term access to content in the event of journal or publisher discontinuation.
The JPHFM website and its publicly available article pages may be periodically captured by the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) as an additional layer of public redundancy, providing supplementary access pathways for readers.
Local Server Backups
JPHFM maintains routine backup procedures including incremental backups, periodic full backups, secure storage practices, and recovery protocols to protect against accidental data loss, corruption, or infrastructure disruption.
Metadata Preservation
JPHFM preserves published articles together with structured metadata including DOI registration data, ORCID information, and standardized metadata formats (OAI-PMH and widely adopted bibliographic schemas) to ensure that article-level records remain findable and citable over time.
Article Permanence
Once an article is published in JPHFM, it forms part of the permanent scholarly record and is intended to remain accessible indefinitely. Published content is not removed or replaced, except through formal post-publication actions that preserve transparency and traceability.
Self-Archiving (Green Open Access) Policy
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) permits and encourages authors to self-archive their manuscripts to support wider dissemination, earlier visibility, and long-term preservation of scholarly work. JPHFM imposes no embargo period for self-archiving of any version.
Versions Authors May Deposit
Preprint: May be deposited immediately upon submission on any preprint server or repository. Authors should clearly label it as not yet peer reviewed.
Accepted Manuscript (Post-print): May be deposited immediately upon acceptance in university repositories, national archives, disciplinary repositories, and personal websites. A note directing readers to the Version of Record should be included.
Version of Record (Published PDF): May be deposited immediately upon publication in any repository, including institutional and funding agency archives. The journal's copyright and licensing notice must be retained.
Mandatory Citation of Published Article
Authors must include a complete citation to the published JPHFM article in all self-archived versions, including article title, full author list, journal name (JPHFM), year, volume/issue, DOI (if assigned), publisher name, and CC BY 4.0 license link
Ownership & Management Disclosure
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) is owned, managed, and published by Research loom(Private) Limited, Pakistan.
Publisher Details
Publisher: Research Loom (Private) Limited, Pakistan
Registered Address: POF WAH CNATT , Pakistan
Website: https://researchloom.org/index.php/jphfm/index
Contact: editor@researchloom.org
Editorial Independence
JPHFM maintains strict editorial independence as a foundational governance principle. Editorial decisions are made solely on the basis of scientific merit, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal's scope, and the quality and clarity of reporting. The publisher does not interfere with editorial decision-making and does not influence the acceptance, rejection, or retraction of manuscripts.
Separation of Roles
Editors retain full authority over acceptance and rejection decisions, while the publisher provides administrative, technical, and financial support necessary for journal operations. Publication fee payments are handled administratively after acceptance and are not used as an input to editorial evaluation.
Privacy Policy and Data Protection Statement
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) is committed to protecting the privacy and personal data of authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. JPHFM collects and processes personal information only to the extent necessary to operate a scholarly publishing workflow and applies widely recognized data protection principles, including purpose limitation, data minimization, confidentiality, transparency, and reasonable security safeguards.
Information We Collect
Author information (names, emails, affiliations, ORCID iD, manuscript files, funding and COI declarations), reviewer information (names, emails, expertise, review activity), and limited non-identifiable reader and website usage data (aggregated analytics, download statistics, cookies for website functionality).
How We Use Personal Data
Personal data is used strictly for scholarly publishing purposes: manuscript management, peer review administration, indexing, archiving, ethics inquiries, and post-publication updates. JHWCR does not sell personal data or use it for unrelated marketing or commercial profiling.
Right to Access, Correct, or Delete Personal Data
Individuals may request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal data by writing to editor@researchloom.org . Published content and core publication metadata form part of the permanent scholarly record and cannot generally be deleted.
Author Charges / Publication Fee Policy (APC)
Article Processing Charge (APC)
PKR 25,000
Charged only after formal acceptance | Same for national & international authors | No submission fee | No hidden charges
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine (JPHFM) is committed to transparent, ethical, and fully disclosed publishing practices. No fees are requested or accepted at submission, and the journal does not impose charges that could be perceived as purchasing editorial outcomes.
What the Publication Fee Covers
The publication fee supports editorial and administrative processing after acceptance, professional copyediting and language polishing, typesetting and formatting, online hosting and platform maintenance, metadata management for indexing and discoverability, and long-term digital preservation arrangements. No additional mandatory charges are applied.
No Hidden or Additional Charges
JPHFM does not charge submission fees, peer review fees, page charges, color figure charges, excess length charges, supplementary file charges, or editorial handling fees. There are no fast-track or priority review fees.
Waiver Policy (Case-by-Case)
JPHFM may grant partial or full waivers for authors with genuine financial hardship, early-career researchers or PhD scholars without funding support, or authors based in resource-constrained settings. Waiver requests should be submitted after acceptance and before payment, accompanied by a clear justification. Waiver decisions are final and do not influence editorial outcomes.
Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy
The Journal of Public Health and Family Medicine(JPHFM) requires full disclosure of any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest from authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff. Conflicts of interest are common in modern research environments and are not inherently unethical; however, failure to disclose relevant relationships can undermine trust and compromise the credibility of decision-making.
Categories of COI
Financial: Research funding from commercial entities, consulting fees, honoraria, stock ownership, patents, royalties, paid advisory roles, or any financial relationship affected by the publication's findings.
Non-Financial: Close personal relationships, family connections, academic rivalry, professional competition, strongly held intellectual positions, political or ideological commitments, or stakeholder group affiliations.
Institutional: Employment at, supervision by, or close links to organizations with an interest in the manuscript's outcomes.
No Conflict Statement
If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly state: "The authors declare that they have no competing interests."
Reviewer COI
Reviewers must generally decline when they have collaborated with an author within the last three years or have any other relationship that would reasonably call impartiality into question.
Handling Undisclosed COI
If an undisclosed COI is discovered, JPHFM may request updated disclosure, reject the manuscript, publish a correction, issue an expression of concern, or retract the article. The journal may also notify the author's institution or apply proportionate submission restrictions.
