For Reviewers

The review

From invitation to submitted report

• Before you accept

  Check fit and conflicts

  Accept only where your expertise covers the manuscript’s subject and setting. Declare any financial or non-financial interest and decline where one exists. Declining promptly helps the editor reassign the manuscript quickly.

  Everything in the manuscript is confidential. For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.

• The review lens

  Judge the evidence against the claim

  The journal publishes observational, analytical, methodological, clinical, surveillance-based, preventive, synthesis and policy work. Assess each against what it claims, not against a single evidence model: a manuscript does not need field sampling, a clinical outcome or experimental validation to be sound.

  • Relevance — does the work connect to human exposure, health, surveillance, prevention or care?
  • Exposure assessment — are measurement, calibration and classification described and valid?
  • Design and analysis — are the design, statistics, confounders and biases appropriate?
  • Outcomes — are case criteria and outcome definitions clear and consistently applied?
  • Interpretation — do the conclusions stay within what the data support, including any policy implications drawn?
  • Transparency — are ethics approvals, consent, data availability and reproducibility statements present?
  • Consistency — do tables, figures and text agree?

• Writing the review

  Be specific and constructive

  Identify the major methodological issues first and say what would resolve each one. Note the strengths as well, so the editor and the authors can see what the manuscript already establishes. Recommendations go to the editor; the decision is the editor’s.

• Tools and confidentiality

  Handling the manuscript

  Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.

  After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.

• Afterwards

  What the review contributes

  Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships, and editorial or reviewer roles. Reviewing confers no advantage in the review of the reviewer’s own submissions.