About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Annals of Health Research is a peer-reviewed open access journal of medical sciences (clinical and laboratory medicine and public health) meant to disseminate research works and ideas in the fields of clinical and laboratory medicine and public health with the ultimate goals of enhancing knowledge, improving practice and encouraging practice-centred research.

The Annals of Health Research is published quarterly, in the moths of March, June, September and December (formerly biannually in June and December). This journal publishes original communications in the form of original research, high-quality case reports, short communications, letters to the editor and systematic reviews on clinical medicine (surgery, surgical specialities, paediatrics, internal medicine, public health, obstetrics and gynaecology), and laboratory medicine. Articles in form of Narrative Reviews, Personal Practice, Personal Opinions and Commentaries will only be invited from renowned experts in the concerned fields by the Editors.

Ownership

The journal is owned, sponsored and published by the Medical and Dental Consultants' Association of Nigeria, Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu Branch, Sagamu, Nigeria. The journal presently does not receive sponsorship from any external body or in form of adverts from agencies and companies.

Peer Review Process

EDITORIAL POLICY

The operations of the editorial board of the journal are in conformity with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (C.O.P.E) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [www.icmje.org].

Manuscripts are submitted to the journal on the understanding that the same manuscript has not been simultaneously submitted to another journal, is not under processing by another journal, has not been accepted by another journal and no substantial part of the data contained in the manuscript has already been published elsewhere.

All manuscripts are subjected to an initial round of in-house editorial review and only manuscripts of satisfactory quality are processed further at the external peer review stage. The journal employs a double-blinded style of external peer-review process usually conducted by experts in the relevant specialties, who are sourced from cognate institutions. Guided by the reports obtained from the editorial review and the external peer review processes, the editorial board determines the suitability of every manuscript. Editorial decisions are usually communicated to the authors within eight weeks of submission.

Revised manuscripts are expected to be submitted within four weeks of communicating the editorial decision. As a matter of editorial policy, revised manuscripts are not returned to external reviewers for re-assessment. Rather, in-house editors vet revised manuscripts to ensure compliance with the suggestions and queries raised by external reviewers except for technical issues which must necessarily be assessed by the external reviewers. The other situation in which revised manuscripts may be returned to external peer reviewers is when the manuscript, after the initial review is recommended for rejection and re-submission. When a manuscript is accepted, a formal letter  of acceptance indicating the manuscript number, title of the manuscript and the list of authors, is issued to the authors.

Upon acceptance, the editorial board reserves the exclusive right to edit manuscripts (from the title to the references, including tables and figures) to meet the journal’s style prior to publishing.  Accepted manuscripts are published online (at www.annalsofhealthresearch.com) and in print.

 The journal abhors duplicate submission, data falsification, data fabrication and duplication of data already accepted by or published in other journals (even when certain cosmetic changes/additions are made). Plagiarism of any form, is also considered a major publication misconduct. The journal defines plagiarism as "presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement". The Editorial Board uses intrinsic mechanisms detecting data falsifications, fabrications and duplications. Every manuscript is subjected to electronic plagiarism check using the tools provided in Crossref and Grammarly software. Such acts of publication misconduct shall be officially addressed according to the provisions of the ICMJE. Such cases of publication frauds shall be treated with outright rejection if detected prior to publishing or retraction if detected after publishing. The concerned authors shall be blacklisted and shall be officially reported to their institutions.

Authors and peer-reviewers are encouraged to channel any complaints or protests concerning any aspect of the editorial process to the Editor-in-Chief (annalsofhealthresearch@gmail.com) . Such complaints are investigated by the Editor-in-Chief and the findings are presented to the Editorial Board for deliberation and adjudication.   

The articles and other materials published in the Annals of Health Research are protected by the Nigerian Copyright laws. The journal owns the copyright over every article, scientific and intellectual materials published in it. This requires every author to formally transfer the copyright over manuscripts and materials to the journal.  However, with the open access publishing policy and under the provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 License, the journal grants all authors, users and researchers, free access to the materials published online in the journal with the permission to copy, use and distribute the materials contained therein for non-commercial but academic and scientific purposes, provided the source is adequately cited and credited.

The views, information and opinions expressed and presented in the articles and other materials published in the journal only reflect the submission of the respective authors. Neither the journal, the editorial team, the editorial board, other agents and representatives of the journal nor the publishers of the journal assumes liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness and validity of the contents of the materials so published in the journal. Therefore, only manuscripts accompanied with the signed Copyright Transfer/ Undertaking Form will be processed.

Publication Frequency

Quarterly publication (March, June, September and December), formerly biannually (June and December).

Sponsors

• Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, OOU Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, Nigeria (www.mdcan.oouth.org.ng)

Journal History

From inception, the Annals of Health Research was published twice yearly, in the moths of June and December until 2020 when the frequency was increased to quarterly in the months of March, June, September and December. This journal publishes original communications in the form of original research, high-quality case reports, short communications, letters to the editor and systematic reviews on clinical medicine (general surgery, surgical specialties, paediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology), laboratory medicine and public health. Articles in form of Narrative Reviews, Personal Practice, Personal Opinions and Commentaries will only be invited from renowned experts in the concerned fields by the Editors.

The First Edition was published in June 2015.

License

This journal is published under the Creative Commons License Attribution Non-Commercial CC BY-NC [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/]. This license lets others remix, tweak and build upon our works non-commercially and although, their new works must also acknowledge us and be non-commercial, they do not have to license their derivative works on the same terms.