All research activities must respect fundamental ethics principles, including those reflected in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. 
These principles include the need to ensure the freedom of research and the need to protect the physical and moral integrity of individuals and the welfare of animals.

Ethics is an integral part of research from beginning to end, and ethical compliance is seen as pivotal to achieve real research excellence. Ethical research conduct implies the application of fundamental ethical principles and legislation to scientific research in all domains of research.

JHA follows the recommendations and core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding ethical policies and dealing with misconduct. Misconduct includes falsifying data, plagiarizing others' works, and breach of confidentiality. Each case will be considered by the publisher and Editors-in-Chief, and in all cases the author (or reviewer) will be contacted directly. 

If misconduct is suspected during the review process the manuscript will be held until any concerns have been resolved. If misconduct is confirmed during the review process the manuscript will be immediately rejected. If misconduct is proved after publication, then the article will be retracted.

Authors who submit papers to JHA attest that their work is original and unpublished and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. 
In addition, authors confirm that their paper is their own; that it has not been copied or plagiarized, in whole or in part, from other works; and that they have disclosed actual or potential conflicts of interest with their work or partial benefits associated with it.

The Editors-in-Chief of JHA are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The Editors-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board. Decision making Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Currently JHA uses internal experts to help evaluate articles and assist the Editors-in-Chief to decide.
When articles are submitted, they will be checked and any that appear out of scope of the journal, or otherwise unsuitable for consideration, will be rejected immediately. 
All other original research articles will be reviewed by Editors and, if needed, a statistician. Reviewers are selected from the Editorial Board of the journal, based on their experience of the subject matter of the article. 
The journal may invite external experts if an article suitable for consideration is outside the Editors’ expertise. The journal uses single-blind peer review, which means that, by default, author names are revealed to reviewers, but reviewer names are withheld from the authors. Authors can request to "blind" their names.

Publisher complies with the Committee on Publication Ethics Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
On receipt of at least two reviews, the Editor-in-Chief will decide of (1) accept, (2) minor revision, (3) major revision, or (4) reject. The reasons for the decision will be communicated to the authors.

When the decision of minor/major revision is made, and the authors do not revise their articles satisfactorily after receiving reviewer reports, then the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject the article. When revised articles are received, they will either be sent out for further review or the Editor-in-Chief will make a decision depending on the level of revision requested.

Note that articles that do not report original research (e.g. letters to the editor, editorials) are not externally reviewed and the Editor-in-Chief makes independently the decision to publish.

A Conflict of Interest is defined as a situation where personal relationships (e.g. friend, colleague or family), business relationships (e.g. working in a competing company), or financial influences (e.g. funding) will affect the judgement of any person during the publication of the journal.

Authors are required to declare (within the article and to the Editor-in-Chief) any Conflict of Interest (COI) that may have affected their research (e.g. funding) or decision to submit to the journal.
Reviewers are required to declare if they have any Conflict of Interest (COI) that may affect their judgement of any article they review. 

The COI may not prevent them reviewing the article but must be declared to the Editor-in-Chief as soon as it is known.

Editors are excluded from any publishing decision in which they may have a Conflict of Interest (COI).

Manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

The Editors in Chief/editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.