Preprints are academic research articles that have not yet been submitted to peer review or approved for publication in a scientific journal. Available in open access systems (called repositories or servers), they make it possible to expedite the process of communicating and disseminating information. The servers were designed to expand the involvement of the academic community whose criticism and suggestions can contribute to improving the manuscript even before its formal submission to and publication in a scientific journal. Additionally, articles deposited in preprint repositories have a DOI (digital object identifier) that ensures authorship and enables citation.

The paper by Camargo Jr. & Coeli ¹1. Camargo Jr. KR, Coeli CM. The challenge of preprints for public health. Cad Saúde Pública 2022; 38:e00168222. published in this issue addresses the advantages and disadvantages of preprints, as well as the controversies on the subject in the literature. The authors highlight the possible benefits of the swift disclosure of relevant scientific content in open access with the risks of spreading low-quality work and their possible negative impacts on the health of the population.

CSP is a journal that guarantees the reading public free access to its entire collection, an essential part of the principles of Open Science. Besides CSP recognizes the importance of preprints in the current context of scientific publishing and, since 2020, has accepted articles previously deposited in non-commercial preprint repositories (for example, arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, Zenodo, and SciELO Preprints) before submission to the journal or during the peer review process.

In these two situations, the author must contact the journal’s editorial team, and inform the preprints server name and the DOI assigned to the article ²2. Cadernos de Saúde Pública. Instrução para autores. http://cadernos.ensp.fiocruz.br/csp/submissao/instrucao-para-autores (acessado em 10/Out/2022).
http://cadernos.ensp.fiocruz.br/csp/subm... . However, it is not recommended to publish on a preprint server an article previously approved by CSP. In this case, the participation of the scientific community debating with the author will not contribute to improve the article and the duplicity of DOI may be detrimental to the authors and the journal.

In addition, as of 2022, the time interval between approval and publication of articles has decreased considerably (Figure 1). Currently, the average time for post-approval publication is two months, therefore fairly fast.

It should be noted that articles are deposited in a preprint server at the author’s discretion. However, attention should be given to the consequences for the double-blind peer review system adopted by CSP, since it allows authorship identification.

Several aspects and requirements for the advancement of open practices and knowledge sharing are part of the contemporary debate on scientific publishing, such as open peer review and availability of the databases used in the articles. CSP has adopted a careful and well-founded process, interacting with the needs of the Public Health field, aiming to constantly improve the process of scientific communication.

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