For Editors

Responsibilities

The decision framework

• Before review

  Screen the manuscript

  All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. The first question is relevance to the journal’s remit: exposures encountered at work and in the wider environment, their effects on human health, and the surveillance, prevention and clinical practice that follow.

  Scope is a question about relevance, not a list of permitted techniques. Observational, analytical, methodological, clinical, surveillance-based, preventive, synthesis and policy or implementation work all belong here. A manuscript does not need field sampling, a clinical outcome, or experimental validation to be eligible; the evidence has to match the claim it makes.

  • Confirm ethics approvals and consent documentation
  • Check that conflicts of interest and funding are disclosed
  • Check that the reporting guideline matching the design has been followed
  • Confirm the data-availability statement is present

• Selecting reviewers

  Match expertise to the manuscript

  Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. Choose reviewers whose expertise covers both the subject and the setting — the industry, the exposure or the population the manuscript concerns. Request statistical review where exposure modeling is complex.

  Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.

• Conflicts

  Declare and step aside

  Editors declare financial and non-financial interests and recuse themselves from manuscripts where they hold one. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions; those manuscripts are handled independently.

• The decision

  Judge the evidence against the claim

  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.

  Apply the evidence test the manuscript sets itself. A methods paper is judged on its method, a population study on its design and analysis, a clinical report on the strength of the inference it draws about causation, a policy evaluation on the fit between the question and the design. No single evidence model is imposed across all of them.

  • Weigh reviewer recommendations rather than counting them
  • Where reviews conflict, give balanced guidance or seek a further review
  • Write decision letters that identify what would answer the concern

• Integrity

  Escalate rather than resolve alone

  Suspected misconduct, plagiarism, data fabrication or image manipulation goes to the editorial office at [email protected] for investigation under COPE guidance.

  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 the decision

  Keep the record straight

  Confidentiality over the manuscript and the review continues after the decision. Where the published record needs a correction, retraction or expression of concern, it is issued and stays with the article it concerns.

  Authors may appeal with a written rationale; appeals are reviewed by senior editors.