Editorial stewardship · Independent decisions · Accountability
Editors are responsible for the integrity of each decision
An editor assesses fit, appoints appropriate reviewers, protects confidentiality, evaluates evidence and reports, manages conflicts, and explains the decision. The role is active scholarly work, not an honorary title.
Before accepting an assignment
Accept only when the manuscript is within the editor's expertise, there is time to manage it, and no conflict would undermine independent handling.
- Declare personal, financial, intellectual, professional, institutional, or collaborative conflicts promptly.
- Recuse from the editor's own work and manuscripts from close collaborators, supervisees, competitors, or other relationships that could affect judgement.
- Keep the manuscript, author information, reviews, and correspondence confidential within the applicable review model.
- Do not upload confidential content to an external AI tool that cannot guarantee confidentiality.
- Confirm availability; request reassignment early when expertise, workload, or conflict makes responsible handling unlikely.
Independence
Editorship confers no advantage in the review or acceptance of an editor's own manuscript. Such submissions require independent handling outside the editor's authority.
Initial manuscript assessment
Scope and contribution
Prevention must be central. Identify the research question, population, study design, and contribution beyond general clinical treatment.
Methods and statistics
Check design suitability, outcome definition, sampling, bias, confounding, missing data, uncertainty, analysis, and whether conclusions match the evidence.
Ethics and privacy
Review approvals, consent, trial registration, community or surveillance context, sensitive-data protection, and risks to individuals or groups.
Reporting and transparency
Check the applicable guideline, data-availability statement, funding, funder role, conflicts, authorship, preprint, related work, and AI-use disclosure.
A manuscript may be declined without external review when it is clearly out of scope, methodologically unsuitable, incomplete, duplicative, unethical, or unable to support its principal claim. The reason should be recorded accurately and respectfully.
Select and manage reviewers deliberately
Reviewer choice should reflect the manuscript's subject, methods, population, and ethical or statistical complexity.
Expertise
Choose reviewers able to assess both the prevention question and the design or analysis. Add methodological expertise when needed.
Conflicts
Screen affiliations, recent collaboration, mentorship, competing work, financial interests, and author-suggested exclusions.
Independence
Do not delegate reviewer selection to authors, sponsors, or guest editors. Suggested names are leads, not automatic appointments.
Review quality
Address late, superficial, hostile, discriminatory, coercive-citation, or confidentiality-breaching reports before relying on them.
Decision, integrity concerns, appeals, and the published record
Synthesise the evidence
Read the manuscript and reports independently. Resolve contradictions and distinguish essential revisions from optional suggestions.
Write the decision
State the category and rationale, identify the principal scientific and ethical issues, and provide an actionable hierarchy for revisions.
Escalate concerns
Refer suspected misconduct, authorship disputes, image or data anomalies, legal threats, privacy risks, or systemic conflicts to the editorial office before contacting third parties.
Protect the record
Cooperate with complaints, appeals, corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, and institutional inquiries. Preserve relevant records and recuse where necessary.
AI assistance
An editor remains personally responsible for every assessment and decision. Any permitted tool use must be disclosed to the editorial office, must protect confidentiality, and cannot replace expert judgement.
Appointment, availability, and continued service
Editorial appointments are vetted against subject expertise, current affiliation, publication record, conflicts, availability, and willingness to follow journal policies.
- Prospective editors may be asked for a current CV, ORCID iD, institutional affiliation, and relevant subject and methods expertise.
- Editors should keep profiles and conflicts current, respond to assignments, communicate foreseeable delays, and complete required policy or system updates.
- Appointment may be reviewed when activity, responsiveness, conduct, conflicts, expertise, or policy compliance no longer supports responsible service.
- Editorial-office support includes workflow guidance, reviewer support, templates, and escalation of integrity or policy questions.
Need to declare a conflict or escalate an editorial concern?
Contact the editorial office before taking action that could affect confidentiality, reviewer independence, an appeal, an investigation, or the published record.
Journal of Preventive Medicine and Care · ISSN 2474-3585 · Aims & Scope · Editorial Policies · APC