Review Process Policy

Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ)

1. Purpose

Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ), published by LPPM Institut Teknologi dan Kesehatan Aspirasi, is committed to maintaining the quality, originality, clinical relevance, and ethical integrity of published scholarly work. The journal applies a structured editorial and peer-review workflow to ensure that submitted manuscripts meet biomedical and health science standards, contributing meaningfully to disciplines including public health, nursing, midwifery, medicine, pharmacy, health psychology, nutrition, health technology, health analysis, health information systems, medical records, health law, and hospital management.

The review process is designed to ensure objective editorial decisions, constructive feedback for authors, academic integrity, and continuous quality improvement in health sciences publishing.

2. Initial Editorial Screening

All manuscripts submitted to Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) undergo initial technical and editorial screening by the editorial team prior to peer review.

During this stage, the handling editor evaluates whether the manuscript:

Falls squarely within the journal's focus and scope across health and clinical domains.
Complies with the journal's author guidelines, structural template, and formatting rules.
Demonstrates adequate academic rigor, clinical/public health significance, clarity, and scientific originality.
Contains complete components, including structured abstracts, full reference lists, ethical clearance disclosures, informed consent statements, and conflict of interest declarations.
Fulfills publication ethics standards and similarity screening thresholds using Turnitin or comparable similarity detection systems.

Manuscripts that fail to meet these baseline requirements may be unsubmitted and returned to authors for correction, or rejected outright without external review.

3. Peer Review Process

Manuscripts passing initial screening advance to external peer review conducted by qualified academics and practitioners with specialized expertise in the manuscript's health discipline.

Reviewers evaluate methodological soundness, sample adequacy, clinical validity, diagnostic accuracy, epidemiological reasoning, data interpretation, clarity of presentation, and relevance to healthcare practice and health literature.

Review Model: Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) operates a Double-Blind Peer Review system. The identities of authors and reviewers remain concealed from one another throughout the entire evaluation workflow. Authors must ensure all identifying institutional details, acknowledgments, and explicit self-citations are blinded in the submitted review manuscript.
Reviewer Assignment: Each manuscript is evaluated by a minimum of two (2) independent peer reviewers. Additional reviewers or statistical specialists may be assigned when specialized methodological or multidisciplinary appraisal is needed.

4. Reviewer Selection

Reviewers are selected based on demonstrated scholarly expertise, publication track record in relevant health or clinical subfields, methodological competence, and history of objective scientific assessment.

The editorial office prevents conflicts of interest during reviewer matching:

Reviewers are not assigned manuscripts from authors affiliated with their own home departments or active collaboration networks.
Reviewers must not have co-authored publications with the submitting authors within the preceding three years.
The handling editor invites supplementary reviewers whenever initial appraisals are discordant, incomplete, or require deeper biostatistical scrutiny.

5. Review Criteria

Reviewers assess submissions against established scientific benchmarks:

Relevance and Scope: Alignment with the multidisciplinary health focus of AOHJ.
Originality and Scholarly Contribution: Novelty of findings, clinical utility, or demonstrable advancement of existing healthcare evidence.
Literature Review: Thorough engagement with current, primary, and peer-reviewed biomedical and public health literature.
Methodology and Study Design: Appropriateness, replicability, and ethical validity of clinical protocols, epidemiological sampling, experimental controls, or qualitative health approaches.
Results and Discussion: Clear data reporting, accurate statistical analyses, and balanced interpretation contextualized against existing clinical literature.
Conclusions and Practical Implications: Evidence-backed conclusions with direct application to clinical workflows, health systems, or community interventions.
Presentation and Readability: Coherent academic structure, clinical precision in terminology, and accurate formatting of tables, medical figures, and illustrations.
Research Ethics and Integrity: Adherence to human and animal research ethics, presence of Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval numbers, patient informed consent, and data authenticity.

6. Editorial Decisions

The handling editor and the Editor-in-Chief (Arif Sofyandi, S.Kep., M.K.M.) issue final editorial decisions based on reviewer assessments, methodological validity, and the journal's publication standards.

The primary decision outcomes comprise:

Accept: The manuscript is accepted in its current form, subject only to final copyediting and metadata formatting.
Minor Revision: The manuscript requires specific, minor clarifications, textual adjustments, or citation additions before final acceptance.
Major Revision: The manuscript requires extensive revisions, re-analysis of data, methodological clarification, or restructuring, followed by a second round of peer review.
Reject: The manuscript displays serious methodological flaws, insufficient originality, unethical conduct, or falls outside the journal's scope.

Reviewer recommendations provide guidance, but the final publication decision resides exclusively with the Editor-in-Chief.

7. Revision and Author Response

When revisions are required, authors must upload their revised files through the OJS system within the timeframe set by the editorial team (typically 2 to 4 weeks).

Authors must provide:

A revised manuscript containing tracked changes or highlighted revisions.
A comprehensive, point-by-point response letter addressing every reviewer and editorial comment.
Evidence-based, academic justifications where authors respectfully rebut specific reviewer suggestions.

Substantially revised manuscripts are routinely returned to the original reviewers for re-evaluation. Failure to submit revisions within the allocated window without prior authorized extension will lead to the manuscript being archived as withdrawn.

8. Confidentiality

All manuscripts submitted to Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) are confidential scientific assets:

Editors and reviewers must not copy, disclose, share, or cite unpublished findings, patient data, or study designs.
Reviewers are strictly forbidden from uploading submitted manuscript drafts into public artificial intelligence models, cloud services, or external repositories that compromise proprietary text and patient confidentiality.
All evaluation records, referee notes, and author correspondence remain secured inside the journal management database.

9. Reviewer Responsibilities and Ethical Conduct

Invited reviewers are expected to:

Deliver objective, unbiased, timely, and constructive evaluations focused entirely on scientific merits.
Identify uncredited scientific work, missed baseline trials, or potential instances of plagiarism and data manipulation.
Disclose any financial, personal, or clinical competing interests to the handling editor immediately.
Decline invitations promptly if the subject matter falls outside their area of expertise or if time constraints prevent a timely review.
Maintain professional courtesy and refrain from discriminatory, ad hominem, or unconstructive criticism.

10. Editorial Independence and Conflicts of Interest

Editorial determinations are dictated solely by the scientific merit, originality, and ethical validity of the manuscript, independent of commercial, political, or institutional pressures.

Editorial board members recuse themselves from managing any manuscript in which they hold personal, clinical, or financial competing interests.
Submissions authored by editors, board members, or institutional affiliates of LPPM Institut Teknologi dan Kesehatan Aspirasi are delegated to independent section editors and undergo double-blind peer review without editorial access by the authoring member.

11. Review Timelines

Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) seeks to balance rigorous peer review with efficient publication turnarounds:

Initial Editorial Screening: 1–2 weeks from initial submission.
First-Round Peer Review: 3–6 weeks following assignment to external reviewers.
Author Revision Window: 2–4 weeks depending on the required scale of revisions.
Final Editorial Decision: Within 1–2 weeks following receipt of revised materials.

Authors can track manuscript progression in real time through the Open Journal Systems platform.

12. Appeals and Complaints

Authors who hold clear evidence that an adverse editorial decision resulted from verifiable factual errors, procedural breaches, or reviewer bias may lodge a formal appeal to the Editor-in-Chief.

Appeals must be submitted in writing within 14 days of the decision notice, containing concrete scientific and documented justifications. Conceptual disagreements with reviewer interpretation do not constitute valid grounds for appeal. The Editor-in-Chief will appoint an independent board member or specialist to review the record; decisions rendered on appeal are final.

13. Final Statement

Aspiration of Health Journal (AOHJ) upholds an ethical, independent, transparent, and rigorous peer-review system. Through balanced editorial triage and expert double-blind evaluation, the journal safeguards the integrity of the health sciences record and advances reliable, evidence-based research across all healthcare disciplines.