Any study involving animal or human subjects must also include informed consent, privacy rights, and full compliance with relevant laws and guidelines to ensure fair and just treatment of participants within the study.  A full and detailed description of such compliance must be outlined within the methods section of the manuscript. 

The study methodology must comply with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for human participant studies. Research studies comprising human subjects must ensure that any identifiable markers, such as patients' names, initials, hospital or social security numbers,  x-rays, MRIs, images, videos, charts, etc., are removed unless consent is obtained not to do so in a specific instance. The manuscript's methods and/or acknowledgements section must clearly outline this distinction. For research articles involving Indigenous human subjects, relevant consent must be obtained by local Indigenous representatives.

IHS will publish animal research, but it may accept in specific situations (such as, but not limited to, manuscripts in which an animal experiment is also part of a human trial). We encourage authors to contact the editorial office if they wish to inquire about submitting an animal study to the IHS. Research studies of animal subjects must adhere to and comply with the U.S. Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and, as applicable, the Animal Welfare Act to ensure ethical and legal procedures are followed. The sex, age, species and any additional relevant information on the animal subjects used must also be clearly stated in the Methods section of the manuscript.

The authors should include a statement in the manuscript stating that informed consent would be obtained for human participation in the study and that all laws and guidelines would be followed in the case of animal experimentation.