Medicine and Public Health

Article Submission and Peer Review Procedure ↑

All manuscripts submitted to the journal Medicine and Public Health, including those submitted to any special or thematic issues, undergo a rigorous, multi-stage editorial and peer-review procedure designed to ensure high scholarly quality and compliance with international ethical standards. The detailed course of the process is presented below.

Manuscript Submission ↑

Authors submit manuscripts through the Open Journal Systems platform. Guidelines concerning manuscript preparation and the required documents are available in the Guide for Authors.

Initial Editorial Assessment (Desk Review) ↑

The Managing Editor conducts an initial technical and formal assessment of the submission, including:

• compliance with the thematic scope of the journal,
• fulfilment of the formal requirements set out in the Guide for Authors.

If these requirements are not met, the manuscript is returned to the Author with a request for correction and/or completion.

A manuscript that meets the formal requirements is evaluated substantively by the Editorial Team.

If the manuscript does not fall within the thematic scope of the journal or does not meet the required scholarly quality standards, including originality, scientific potential, and appropriate use of the relevant literature, rejection may be recommended. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision to reject the manuscript at this stage (Desk Reject). The Editorial Office is not obliged to provide detailed reasons for rejecting a manuscript at the initial stage.

Plagiarism Screening ↑

Manuscripts that receive a positive substantive assessment are submitted for plagiarism screening via Crossref Similarity Check (iThenticate).

A high similarity index or evidence of unattributed use of sources may result in the rejection of the manuscript following an individual assessment of the similarity report. The journal does not apply fixed percentage thresholds for determining plagiarism. Each similarity report is analysed and assessed individually by the Editorial Office. Every borrowing from another publication must be accompanied by an appropriate reference.

Where the similarity report raises doubts concerning plagiarism, inappropriate attribution, or other potential breaches of publication ethics, the matter is referred to the Editor-in-Chief for the final decision.

Manuscripts that successfully pass the plagiarism screening are forwarded for peer review.

Peer Review — Double-Blind Peer Review ↑

Manuscripts qualified for the next stage are sent for review in accordance with the principle of double anonymity (double-blind peer review):

• reviewers do not know the identity of the Author(s),
• Authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

The Editorial Office appoints at least two independent reviewers affiliated with institutions other than those of the manuscript’s Author(s). Reviewers are selected on the basis of their expertise in the relevant field and the absence of any conflict of interest.

Preparation of Reviews ↑

Reviewers assess manuscripts using a standard review form, taking into account, among other things:

• the quality of argumentation and logical structure,
• coherence and linguistic precision,
• the currency and relevance of the selected literature,
• the originality of the approach to the topic.

The review includes one of the following recommendations:

• acceptance without revisions,
• acceptance subject to revisions,
• rejection of the manuscript.

Each recommendation must be justified in detail. The deadline for preparing a review in the first round is 14 days; in the second and subsequent rounds, where applicable, the deadline is 7 days.

Editorial Recommendation and Final Decision ↑

On the basis of the reviews, a recommendation regarding publication is formulated. The ultimate and decisive authority regarding the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief.

The process proceeds as follows:

• Acceptance without revisions — both reviews are positive and contain no substantive comments. The manuscript may be recommended for acceptance. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.
• Revisions required — Authors are required to revise the manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ comments or provide a justified response where a comment is not implemented. The revised submission must be prepared according to the requirements set out in the section “Preparing and Submitting Revised Files”. The Editorial Office verifies whether the manuscript has been revised in accordance with the reviewers’ recommendations. At the reviewer’s request, the manuscript may be sent for re-review. If the re-review is negative, rejection may be recommended to the Editor-in-Chief.
• One negative review — the manuscript may be recommended for rejection or referred to a third reviewer. The Editor-in-Chief decides whether the manuscript is rejected or whether an additional review is required. The opinion of the third reviewer is taken into account by the Editor-in-Chief when making the final decision.
• Two negative reviews — the manuscript will normally be recommended for rejection. No procedure for revising the manuscript is normally provided after two negative reviews. The final decision rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief.

Final Decision: After reviewing the peer-review reports, editorial recommendations, and all relevant documentation, the Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of the manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision concerning the scientific merit and academic evaluation of the manuscript is final and not subject to appeal.

Informing the Authors ↑

Authors receive the editorial decision through the OJS platform. The decision is accompanied, where applicable, by anonymised peer-review reports and editorial comments. No information identifying the reviewers is disclosed.

The decision letter indicates the outcome of the editorial assessment, such as acceptance, rejection, or a request for revisions. If revisions are required, the decision letter also specifies the deadline for submitting the revised files.

Detailed requirements for preparing and submitting revised files are provided in the next section: Preparing and Submitting Revised Files.

Preparing and Submitting Revised Files ↑

If the editorial decision requires revisions, Authors must prepare and upload a revised submission within the deadline indicated by the Editorial Office. The purpose of the revision stage is to show clearly how the manuscript has been changed in response to the reviewers’ and editors’ comments.

At the revision stage, Authors must submit the following anonymised files:

• a revised manuscript with all changes clearly indicated — changes should be marked either by using Track Changes or by highlighting the modified text in colour;
• a detailed point-by-point response to the reviewers’ and editors’ comments — the response must address each comment separately and in a structured manner;
• a clean revised version of the manuscript, if requested by the Editorial Office.

The response file should be organised clearly, for example:

Authors should respond to every comment raised by each reviewer and, where applicable, by the Editorial Office. The response must clearly indicate what was changed, where the change was introduced, and how the revision addresses the comment. If the Authors decide not to implement a specific comment, they must provide a clear, scholarly, and reasoned justification.

All files submitted at the revision stage must remain fully anonymised. In particular, the revised manuscript, the response to reviewers, file names, document metadata, acknowledgements, funding statements, self-identifying references, supplementary materials, and any other uploaded files must not disclose the names, affiliations, institutional details, e-mail addresses, ORCID identifiers, project identifiers, acknowledgements, or any other information that could reveal the identity of the Author(s).

Submission of non-anonymised files or files that do not meet the above requirements constitutes a breach of the double-blind peer-review procedure. The Editorial Office reserves the right to return such a submission for correction without further processing. In cases where rejection on formal grounds may be warranted, the matter is referred to the Editor-in-Chief for the final decision.

Final Qualification for Publication ↑

After the revised manuscript has been verified by the Editorial Office and formally accepted by the Editor-in-Chief, it is forwarded for language editing.

Language Editing and Author Approval ↑

After completion of the peer-review procedure, accepted manuscripts are forwarded for language editing. As Medicine and Public Health publishes manuscripts exclusively in English, the English-language text is checked by a qualified language editor or native speaker. Authors then receive the edited manuscript for approval of the introduced changes. Failure to respond within the prescribed deadline is treated as acceptance of the text.

The Editorial Office may propose revisions based on editorial assessment and/or the reviewers’ opinions. Where the implementation of such revisions affects the final qualification of the manuscript for publication, the matter is referred to the Editor-in-Chief.

If any doubts concerning the manuscript arise at the stage of editorial work carried out by the Publishing House, including language editing or author approval, they are resolved definitively by the Editor-in-Chief.

Typesetting and Post-Typesetting Proofreading ↑

After the introduced changes have been approved, the manuscript is sent for typesetting and then for post-typesetting proofreading carried out by the Publishing House. The article in PDF format is then sent to the Author for final proofreading. The deadline for this stage is 48 hours. Failure to respond within the prescribed deadline is treated as acceptance of the text.

Publication ↑

Articles are published on the journal’s website and made available to relevant indexing, abstracting, and library services. All articles are made available in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Publication Charges ↑

The journal does not charge any fees for manuscript submission or publication. The costs of preparing the article for publication are fully covered by the Publisher.