About the Journal

The “International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health” has been published since 1988. It was established at the initiative of the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine in Łódź and of the Main Board of the Polish Society of Occupational Medicine.

The Journal is dedicated to present the contemporary research in occupational and environmental health from all over the world. It publishes works concerning: occupational and environmental: medicine, epidemiology, hygiene and toxicology; work physiology and ergonomics, musculoskeletal problems; psychosocial factors at work, work-related mental problems, aging, work ability and return to work; working hours, shift work; reproductive factors and endocrine disruptors; radiation, ionizing and non-ionizing health effects; agricultural hazards; work safety and injury and occupational health service; climate change and its effects on health; omics, genetics and epigenetics in occupational and environmental health; health effects of exposure to nanoparticles and nanotechnology products; human biomarkers in occupational and environmental health, intervention studies, clinical sciences’ achievements with potential to improve occupational and environmental health.

The journal is indexed by, among others, CABI (CAB Abstracts, Global Health), CNKI Scholar, DOAJ, EBSCO (Academic Search Complete, Central & Eastern European Academic Source, Environment Complete, Ergonomics Abstracts), Elsevier (EMBASE, EMCare, SCImago Journal & Country Rank, SCOPUS), Europe PubMed Central, Google Scholar, IBZ online, J-Gate, Library of Science ICM UW, Polish Medical Bibliography, ProQuest (ProQuest Environmental Science Collection, Health and Medical Collection, Psychology Database, Public Health Database), PubMed/MEDLINE, SHERPA/RoMEO, Web of Science Group (BIOSIS Citation Index, BIOSIS Previews, Web of Science Core Collection, Journal Citation Reports, Science Citation Index Expanded), Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, WorldCat.

“International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health" is published based on the open access model (OA).

The use of the articles is possible under the terms of the license CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International). If an article is made available on another site (such as a medicine-related site), it is obligatory to provide the following information: data about the author/co-authors, title of the article, DOI number in the form of a link, name of the journal, year, volume, issue, range of pages and name of the license together with a link to its description: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The editorial office recommends that the authors depositing their works in domain and institutional repositories should use the official published version of the article posted on the journal website: https://ijomeh.eu.

Third party advertisements in the journal or on its website are not accepted. Publication of information about conferences, conventions, symposia, and other events related to the subject matter of the journal on the journal website is acceptable.

PRINCIPLES OF PUBLICATION ETHICS

The journal publisher, Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine in Łódź, applies principles of publication ethics aimed at preventing unfair publication practices in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the rules of the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE). Materials submitted for publication in the journal are carefully reviewed for compliance with publishing ethics and for scientific integrity and value.

THE EDITOR:

• ensures a professional publishing process;
• adheres to the provisions of copyright law;
• ensures confidentiality and security of personal data processing in accordance with applicable regulations (e.g. RODO);
• conducts evaluation of works solely on the basis of merit. The evaluation of works is not affected by the race, gender, religion, origin and political beliefs of the authors;
• counteracts the ghostwriting and guest authorship, which are manifestations of scientific dishonesty;
• takes due care to prevent plagiarism and self-plagiarism;
• has the right to withdraw a text (even after publication) if there is evidence of unreliability of research results and/or falsification of data and/or the work shows signs of plagiarism or violates the rules of publishing ethics;
• publishes errata, decisions to retract a paper, and expressions of concern. Such materials are given DOI numbers and links to the work to which they relate. Reports of concerns and/or errors in published manuscripts should be sent to the journal office: ijomeh@imp.lodz.pl.

The publisher makes every effort to ensure that the manuscripts published in the journal not only present an appropriate level of content and high scientific value, but also apply the principles of publication ethics of the COPE guidelines.

Manuscripts are initially evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief, who directs them to the Associate Editor, a specialist in the field to which the paper relates. The editor scans the manuscript in the anti-plagiarism software – if the result of the scan does not raise any doubts, the manuscript is sent to independent reviewers on a double blind basis. Reviewers’ opinions and corrections are forwarded to authors. After substantive proofreading and re-review, the thematic editor may reject the paper or give a recommendation to accept it for publication. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

Revision procedure

Despite careful evaluation of papers during the review process, the Publisher accepts the risk of errors. In accordance with COPE guidelines, it may take action if a manuscript is published that contains significant inaccuracies and/or erroneous conclusions or questionable information. Doubts about a particular paper must be resolved as soon as possible and the manuscript should be revised immediately.

If the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, reviewer, or production editor detects errors in the manuscript, the author is asked to clarify and correct the paper and indicate the corrections in an errata, which is published in the next issue of the journal.

A problematic paper may be retracted if the concerns are not clarified.

Retraction procedure

If any issues that undermine the scientific credibility of the article (e.g., research misconduct, unethical conduct, plagiarism, duplicate publication) are discovered after publication, the paper will be retracted at the request of the authors or by order of the Editor-in-Chief. According to the COPE guidelines, the process is as follows:

1. A corrigendum entitled “Withdrawal: [article title]” signed by the authors of the paper/Editor-in-Chief of the journal justifying the withdrawal is published in the next issue of the journal.
2. The original article remains in the journal’s archives, but is displayed with a note of withdrawal. Notification of this procedure, combined with a record of the published article, is placed on the journal’s website. In exceptional circumstances, the Publisher reserves the right to remove content from the journal’s website altogether

• as a result of a court or government order;
• when the content poses a risk to the privacy or rights of third parties and this risk cannot be adequately mitigated by an editorial note;
• the study was not lawfully conducted or published and/or its continued availability poses a potential legal or personal risk;
• in the judgment of the Editor-in-Chief, the content – even if marked as withdrawn – may pose a serious risk, such as to public health or a particular community or ecosystem.

When the article is removed, its title, author list, and metadata remain available on the journal’s article record page along with an editor’s note.
3. No changes are made to the original article except the addition of a watermark indicating that the article has been withdrawn.

Publication of reservations (expressions of concern)

Doubts expressed by the editors regarding the research or any other issue described in the manuscript submitted for publication in the journal are clarified in direct correspondence with the authors before publication of the manuscript.

After publication of the article, it is possible for the editors to raise an objection – this is published as an editor’s note only after investigation of the concerns raised and no resolution. It is linked to the original article by a link and relevant information provided in the original text.

The publisher welcomes the opportunity for anyone to raise concerns or suspicions of inappropriate or unethical behavior regarding a published manuscript at any time. The submission should provide all necessary information and evidence to initiate an investigation according to appropriate procedures (COPE schemes). The publisher agrees to conduct them with due seriousness and diligence until the editor-in-chief makes a decision and prepares a response to the submission.

The publisher allows all audiences to discuss any additions or doubts about the published article in the form of so-called letters to the editor. Researchers can provide their opinion on the manuscript by addressing questions/opinions to the authors of the article in the journal. The authors are given the opportunity to prepare a response and the correspondence is published with a link to the original paper in question.