We recommend our authors to read the following carefully before submitting the manuscripts:

1. Manuscripts are accepted on condition that they have not been previously published or submitted for publication, and are not going to be sent to other journals. This restriction does not apply to works published in a form of abstracts or summaries. The "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) Submitted to Biomedical Journals" is incorporated into our review and publication process.

2. After Admin processing, the corresponding author will receive a Manuscript ID Number. All of the manuscripts are subject to be under Review process. The authors can expect to receive the first round of journal's comments and the initial result of their submissions within 4-6 weeks. If the authors choose the fast track option (fast review + publication), they will receive the initial result within "Two" weeks

3. Final decision on an article will be made by Editorial Boards after consideration of reviewers' evaluation. Possible decisions on a manuscript are: accept as is, minor revision, major revision, or reject.

4. Constructive reviewers' comments: All of the accepted manuscripts receive constructive reviewers' comments from our editorial office. Being constructive is one of the main features of peer-review process in Acta HealthMedica. Our authors can consider the constructive reviewers comments as an educational class to improve the quality of the manuscript and they acquire new skills and knowledge that can use it to perform their future research in higher standards and quality of the methods and validity of the findings.

6. This journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)' flowcharts and guidelines for ethical publication of the medical research. 

Editorial workflow and review system in Acta HealthMedica

Step 1. Manuscript submission

This means that the author of the paper submits the article to the journal. If the authors are not familiar with the process of submitting manuscripts for publication or communicating with a journal’s editors, they may ask an expert to submit the manuscript in their behalf. This expert’s name should not be added to the list of authors unless he/she also meets the criteria for authorship. Please refer to the criteria of authorship provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on this link: http://www.icmje.org 

Authors are required to submit three files, i.e., a cover letter, the manuscript, and a completed conflict of interest (COI) form. Please visit the section Author Guidelines and Manuscript Submission , on our website for further information and to download the COI form and a sample cover letter.

An automated manuscript submission and review system is available on the website. However, most of authors who are not familiar with online manuscript submissions and they may submit their manuscripts by email, and we will add the manuscripts to the automated system. 

All submissions must be accompanied by a completed Conflict of Interest (COI) form. The COI form is available at: http://www.ActaHealthMedica.com/COI.pdf 

Please send the manuscript and required files to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  and  c.c it to the publisher at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Step 2. Acknowledgments of submission

Within 1-3 days after submission, the author(s) will receive an email from the editorial office referring to the manuscript number and acknowledging receipt of the manuscript.

If the acknowledgement email from the editorial office has not been received within one week, authors should contact us with WhatsApp applications at +13476889491, or simply send a SMS to +13476889491 mentioning their email address, their names, and the title of manuscript.

Please do not use these numbers to call the editorial office because they are set to receive only SMS, Whatsapp, and Telegram messages. 

Step 3: Review sessions

In this step, the editor will send the manuscript to the reviewers.

In our experience, most of the delays in peer review arise from inadequate communication between the associate editors of academic journals and the reviewers. Sometimes the invited reviewers forget to check their email or may not have time to open emails identified as “Invitation for manuscript review.” Sometimes, they do not inform the journal’s editors concerning whether or not they plan to review the manuscript. Sometimes, they agree to review a manuscript and forget to do so or do not provide their review comments in a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, Acta HealthMedica planned a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for its peer-review system.

In the new system, if a reviewer does not respond within 2-3 days to the invitation to provide a review, someone from editorial office will call them by phone to ask if they received the invitation and whether they plan to provide a review or not. 

We ask all reviewers to perform their reviews as soon as possible, preferably within two weeks. However, we understand that, sometimes, reviewers will require additional time. In any case, members of our editorial office will contact the reviewers weekly to ensure that the reviews are received in the shortest possible time.

The authors can expect to receive the first round of journal's comments and the initial result of their submissions within 4-6 weeks. If the authors choose the fast track option (fast review + publication), they will receive the initial result within "Two" weeks and they are required to pay 100$ upon the acceptance of the manuscript. 

At Acta HealthMedica, we do more than inform authors that their manuscripts have been accepted or rejected or simply ask the authors some questions about the manuscripts. While we do all of the routine reviews that other peer-reviewed journals do, we also have a higher level review system that provides authors some educational hints on the reviewers’ comments. Authors can use the reviewers’ comments and suggestions as well as the educational hints that we will provide to improve the quality of their manuscripts.

In this way, authors who wish to publish their manuscripts in Acta HealthMedica will have access to useful guidance on research methodology, applied statistics, scientific writing, and research ethics, allowing them to organize their manuscripts in keeping with the highest standards. The review sessions will be more constructive and add value to each author’s manuscript, the review sessions also might generate some additional ideas that our authors may wish to consider in their future research. 

Step 4: Initial result of submission

After the first round of review, the manuscript may be rejected or accepted with minor or major revisions. It is possible that we also could accept a manuscript without revision, but this has never happened in the last seven years. Thus, manuscripts that are initially accepted must be revised by the author(s) based on the reviewers’ comments and suggestions.

Step 5. Payment of publication fee

We should clarify that our journal is free for both authors and readers; this clearly means that there is no publication fee, no authors fee, and no subscription fee. If the authors choose the fast track option (fast review + publication), they are required to pay 100$.

As we stated in Author Guidelines, we do not ask our authors to send their manuscripts to English editing companies for native English editing, because we already have a group of top-quality American English editors working for our journal. The journal will not charge the authors for this service, and we perform the highest quality of copy editing on accepted manuscripts to ensure the quality of the work we publish. When we say that advanced English editing is free, we mean that the editing itself is free, but there will be minimal tax and handling fees

Step 6. Screening the manuscript against plagiarism

In this step, iThenticate is used to check the manuscript for similarity index and probable plagiarism. The author will receive the report of iThenticate and the similarity index, and, if required, the author must paraphrase some sentences and paragraphs in the manuscript to make it plagiarism free. The journal may conduct plagiarism screening during any step in the review process.

Step 7. English  editing

In this step, the revised manuscript will be sent for native English editing. Acta HealthMedica will perform advanced English editing on all accepted articles at no cost to the authors. Since our English editors provide numerous comments to the authors, we consider the editing step as the final reviewers' comments before preparing the pre-publication version of the manuscripts. However, our authors will find our English editors' comments, suggestions, and corrections to be very valuable guidance for appropriate scientific writing for academic journals. Thus, our authors can use the skills they learn during this step to their own advantage in writing future manuscripts. 

Step 8. Galley proof

After revising the manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and the English editor’s input, the final pre-publication version of the manuscript will be prepared and sent to the author(s) for final checking and approval. 

Step 9. Publication of paper

After receiving the final approval from the author(s), a digital object identifier (DOI) will be assigned to the article, and it will be sent for final layout design and publication.

The following picture shows the Review Flowchart of the manuscripts in our journal.