Frontiers in Intelligent Medicine & Health is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, and responsible medical communication. The journal follows the principles and best practices recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to uphold transparency, fairness, confidentiality, patient privacy, and accountability throughout the publication process.

Authors submitting to Frontiers in Intelligent Medicine & Health must certify that:

• The work is original and has not been published elsewhere, either in whole or in part.
• All authors have made significant intellectual contributions and have approved the final version of the manuscript.
• Data, images, clinical materials, algorithms, models, software, and results are reported honestly without fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, or inappropriate manipulation.
• Proper citation and permission are obtained for any reused text, figures, tables, diagnostic images, datasets, software screenshots, questionnaires, scales, or other third-party materials.
• No concurrent submission to another journal or publication venue is taking place.
• All sources of funding, institutional support, commercial relationships, and potential conflicts of interest are fully disclosed.
• Research involving human participants, patients, clinical records, biological samples, medical images, interviews, surveys, or personal health data has received appropriate ethical approval or exemption where required.
• Patient consent, privacy protection, data anonymization, and relevant institutional or legal requirements have been properly addressed.

Reviewers contribute to the quality, fairness, and integrity of the publication process. They are expected to:

• Treat manuscripts, clinical information, datasets, figures, and supplementary materials as confidential documents and not share, discuss, or use any content before publication.
• Declare any conflicts of interest and decline the review if they cannot provide an unbiased evaluation.
• Provide constructive, objective, respectful, and timely feedback.
• Alert the editor to any suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data manipulation, image manipulation, ethical approval concerns, patient privacy issues, or unsupported clinical claims.
• Evaluate the manuscript based on scholarly merit, methodological rigor, clinical relevance, technical validity, reproducibility, clarity, and relevance to intelligent medicine and health.
• Not use unpublished information from the manuscript for personal advantage, clinical development, commercial purposes, or their own research without permission.

Editors make fair and unbiased decisions based on scholarly merit, technical quality, ethical compliance, clinical relevance, and journal scope. They shall:

• Maintain the confidentiality of all submitted manuscripts and related correspondence.
• Protect confidential patient information, clinical data, and unpublished research materials during the editorial process.
• Not use unpublished content for their own research, clinical development, commercial benefit, or personal advantage without explicit written consent.
• Recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where conflicts of interest exist.
• Select appropriate reviewers based on expertise, independence, and absence of conflicts of interest.
• Investigate suspected misconduct in accordance with COPE guidelines and relevant journal policies.
• Promote transparency and issue corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern when necessary.

Manuscripts involving human participants, patients, clinical trials, medical records, diagnostic images, biological samples, wearable-device data, digital health data, or other personal health information must include appropriate ethics approval, informed consent, trial registration where applicable, and privacy safeguards. Authors must confirm that all research was conducted in accordance with relevant institutional, national, and international ethical standards.

Allegations of research or publication misconduct will be taken seriously and handled in accordance with COPE flowcharts. Misconduct may include plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated data, falsified results, image manipulation, authorship abuse, undisclosed conflicts of interest, unethical human research, patient privacy breaches, misleading AI-generated content, or unsupported medical claims.

Possible consequences include:

• Immediate rejection of the manuscript in question.
• Request for clarification, correction, raw data, ethics documentation, consent forms, or supporting materials from the authors.
• Temporary or permanent restriction on future submissions from the offending authors.
• Correction, expression of concern, or retraction of published articles.
• Notification to authors’ institutions, employers, ethics committees, trial registries, or funding bodies where appropriate.

When errors are identified that do not invalidate the overall conclusions, a correction notice will be published. Retraction will be considered for major errors or ethical violations, including duplicate publication, fabricated data, plagiarism, serious methodological flaws, invalid clinical claims, or breaches of patient privacy. All corrections and retractions will be clearly marked, linked to the original article, and made freely available.

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, analysis, clinical interpretation, technical development, or reporting of the work. All listed authors must approve the final manuscript and agree to be accountable for their contributions. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged with their permission.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial, personal, professional, institutional, clinical, commercial, intellectual property, or other relationships that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the manuscript or editorial decision. Disclosures help readers and editors assess transparency and potential bias.

This policy is reviewed regularly and may be updated to reflect evolving standards in publication ethics, medical research integrity, clinical data protection, AI-assisted research, and scholarly communication. The current version is always available on this page.

© StarNexus Science Press
Last updated: May 2026. Frontiers in Intelligent Medicine & Health follows COPE guidelines.