About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The first Brazilian Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare is a DOAJ-indexed interdisciplinary publication sponsored by BAHIANA - School of Medicine and Public Health.

It is a Diamond Open Access journal with the mission to foster evidence-based knowledge in the Biomedical and Life Sciences through the publication of rigorous research and concept articles.

Therefore, it will accept and publish original research focused on the critical exploration of the healthcare scientific field (specifically on the topics of publication bias, predictive values of research findings, inconsistencies in study designs and publications) and validation of clinical tools (accuracy of diagnostic / prognostic methods and efficacy / effectiveness / efficiency of therapies).

 Special Features:

  • Diamond open access (no APCs);
  • No industry sponsorship of any kind;
  • Publication of noteworthy peer reviews;
  • Podcasts with editors commenting on outstanding articles or hot topics;
  • A team of associated editors for a comprehensive list of topics in evidence-based medicine.

 

Peer Review Process

The Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare applies double blind reviewing, where both the evaluator and authors remain anonymous throughout the process. Each contribution will be submitted to at least 2 (two) ad hoc reviewers.

The outcomes could be: a) approval for publication as presented in the original; b) approval for publication after improvements required by the reviewer have been implemented; c) rejection.

The authors will always be informed of the review outcome, and will promptly receive all reviewers' annotations.

If the authors decide to carry out the changes suggested by the reviewers, the amended text will be redirected to the same previous evaluators for a new assessment and/or to the scientific editors for final assessment.

Articles may be submitted in Portuguese or English. Once approved, the authors must proceed with the translation to English. 

 
Open Peer Review Policy: Rewarding dedicated reviewers, fostering transparency

In order to foster critical and in-depth peer review and transparency in the health sciences research, outstanding reviews may be considered for publication after consulting with the referee who authored it and assessment by our editorial board.

In order to be eligible for publication, the review must be up to 1000 words in length, it must encompass critical discussion of the reviewed text and appraisal of its evidence (or lack thereof), remarking the quality of the study, its strenghts and limitations and its relevance to the current discussion of its subject among the scientific community.

Thus, adding value to the reviewed work and constituting an independent text in itself, the review will be deemed eligible for publication.

 

Publication Frequency

Submissions accepted for publication are made available online as soon as they are copyedited and layout-edited by our editorial team, and proofread by their authors.

This process, for each accepted article, takes up to four weeks.

Every volume is closed yearly by mid-December, when the publishing cycle restarts for the next year's volume.

 

Open Access Policy

The Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare provides free and immediate public access to all its contents.

It does not apply submission charges nor article processing charges whatsoever, being a scientific vehicle with the exclusive purpose of fostering the advancement of science.

By submitting an article to this journal, the authors recognize themselves as copyright holders and authorize its free use by readers. The published content herein may be, in addition to being read, downloaded, copied, distributed and printed.

The authors retain copyright, transferring to the Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare only the right of first publication.

The Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare adopts the Creative Commons Attribution License, by which all are free to copy and redistribute the published content in any medium or format, to remix it, to transform it and to build knowledge from the aforementioned content for any purpose, including commercial purposes. The users of the content are always required to attribute credit to the original authors.

We recommend authors to deposit the final published version of their articles in institutional repositories linking to their article in the Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare.

Articles submitted for assessment and evaluation in preprint repositories may be submitted to the Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare and they will be considered original nonetheless.

 

Textual Similarity Screening, Self-Archiving and Preprint Policy

In order to enforce the best practices in scientific communications and to prevent copyright infringement, submitted manuscripts are screened with the Similarity Check powered by the iThenticate software before publication.

Screened manuscripts displaying high rates of similarity in the wording of the introduction, discussion and results sections with previously published original content in scientific communication venues with ISBN or ISSN without properly referencing and/or paraphrasing them will be rejected.

Deposits in institutional repositories and submissions to pre-print servers do not constitute plagiarism or self-plagiarism nor they undermine the originality of the research under evaluation for publication in our journal.

We fully support the use of pre-print servers and institutional repositories by our authors. It is our understanding that they are very useful to track the history of evaluation and development of a scientific document along with registered reports and similar practices of transparency and reproducibility.

 

Authorship Policy

The authors of an intellectual property are publicly responsible for its content after publication.

The authors are understood as those that participated in the conception and planning of the research project and the study design and which generated the proper enviroment and conditions for its development.

All authors must approve of the final draft of the text implying thereby that they are apt to defend the ideas presented in the text before the scientific community.

Authorship is not guaranteed by participation in data collection, research groups and laboratories, loan of materials and equipment and by statistical analysis.

The essence of a scientific article lies in the interpretation of the results, in the argumentation and in the conclusions that contribute to the scientific advancement.

Each author must objectively declare their contribution to the intellectual production and competing interests related to the research project according to our submission guidelines. The Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare adopts the ICMJE recommendations regarding the definition of authorship roles.

No author will be added after submission is peer-reviewed nor after it is accepted for publication.

Policy for Submissions by Editorial Board Members: Editorial board members are welcome to submit research reports to be considered for publication after review by unbiased independent peers. However, the journal will publish no more than two submissions per editor per year. Among those, at least one must be an empirical research report.

 

Sponsorship and Advertisement Policy

In order to prevent conflicts of interest, as policy, the Journal of Evidence-based Healthcare does not accept donations nor sponsorship from other organizations.

The journal is fully sponsored by BAHIANA - School of Medicine and Public Health, with in-house dedicated editors-in-chief and so it will remain. That is, editors-in-chief are employees at BAHIANA and shall not be outsourced in any situation, even in case of publication of special and/or thematic issues in the journal.

BAHIANA is a not-for-profit private Health Sciences higher education institution based in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

Notwithstanding, the researchers who are sponsored by industry are welcome to submit their research reports as long as they are methodologically sound, comply with the scope, section policies, author guidelines and journal mission and that the sponsorship is fully and properly disclosed according to the ICMJE recommendations on that matter.

 

Translation Policy

Papers may be submitted in English or Portuguese. In case of acceptance of the submission, the authors are responsible for the translation of the manuscript to English in its final version, including biographies, list of author contributions, paragraph about competing interests, tables, figures, graphs etc. 

Authors of papers submitted in English, in case of acceptance, will be encouraged to translate their submissions to Portuguese to broaden the social impact of their papers among the Lusophone countries.

 

Versions and Retraction Policy

Suspected scientific misconduct will be assessed by the editorial board, who will follow the COPE procedures to further investigate any misconduct allegations that may arise.

In case of retraction, the journal shall abide by the ICMJE recommendations.

Corrections of accidental errors - statistical, methodological or otherwise - whenever reported by the authors themselves will be published immediately and are encouraged.

In either situation, all versions will be maintained online, properly identified as recommended by the ICMJE and linked in both directions for further assessment by the readers.

 

Archiving Policy

This journal is digitally preserved in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) for long-term access. You may learn more about the PKP PN here.

 

Policies last updated May 25th 2023