Reviewer Guidelines

The Journal of Applied Health Sciences and Medicine (JAHSM) uses a single-blind peer-review process. Reviewers remain anonymous to authors.

Reviewer Selection and Qualifications

Reviewers should have appropriate subject expertise, methodological knowledge, statistical knowledge, clinical expertise, or relevant professional experience for the manuscript assigned to them. Reviewers should decline assignments that fall outside their area of competence.

Reviewer Responsibilities

• Evaluate the scientific quality, originality, relevance, and methodological soundness of the manuscript.
• Assess whether the methods are appropriate and sufficiently described.
• Assess whether the results support the conclusions.
• Consider the appropriateness of statistical methods where relevant.
• Consider whether applicable ethical requirements have been addressed.
• Consider whether appropriate reporting standards have been followed.
• Identify important ethical, statistical, methodological, or reporting concerns.
• Provide clear, constructive, respectful, and evidence-based comments.
• Maintain confidentiality throughout the review process.
• Declare actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.
• Identify suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, or other misconduct.
• Complete the review within the agreed timeframe.

Research Ethics

Reviewers should consider whether research involving human participants, human biological materials, medical records, identifiable information, or animals appears to have appropriate ethical oversight where applicable.

For medical research involving human participants, reviewers may consider whether the manuscript appropriately addresses the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (2024), where applicable.

Reviewers should alert the editor confidentially if there are concerns regarding ethics approval, informed consent, participant privacy, animal welfare, clinical trial registration, or other ethical requirements.

Reporting and Methodological Standards

Reviewers should consider whether the manuscript follows reporting standards appropriate to its study design. Relevant resources include:

• CONSORT – randomized trials
• STROBE – observational studies
• PRISMA – systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• CARE – case reports
• STARD – diagnostic accuracy studies
• ARRIVE – animal research
• COREQ / SRQR – qualitative research
• EQUATOR Network – other applicable health-research reporting guidelines

Reviewers should focus on the scientific and reporting quality of the manuscript rather than requiring authors to follow a particular formatting or reference style at the initial submission stage.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest. A reviewer should decline the assignment where a conflict could compromise or reasonably appear to compromise objective assessment.

Potential conflicts may include personal relationships, professional collaborations, institutional relationships, supervisory relationships, competitive interests, financial interests, or other relevant circumstances.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts, data, figures, correspondence, patient information, and all information obtained during peer review are confidential.

Reviewers must not share, copy, distribute, publish, or discuss manuscript content with unauthorized persons. Unpublished information obtained through peer review must not be used for personal, professional, financial, academic, or competitive advantage.

Patient Privacy and Sensitive Information

Reviewers should alert the editor if a manuscript appears to contain unnecessary identifying patient information, identifiable clinical images, medical records, or other confidential information without an appropriate ethical or consent statement.

Research Integrity and Misconduct

Reviewers should alert the editor confidentially to credible concerns involving:

• Fabrication or falsification of data;
• Plagiarism or inappropriate text reuse;
• Duplicate or redundant publication;
• Inappropriate image manipulation;
• Unethical research practices;
• Questionable or falsified ethics approval;
• Improper authorship practices;
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest; or
• Peer-review or publication-process manipulation.

Reviewer Comments

Comments should be professional, specific, constructive, and evidence-based. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate.

Reviewers should distinguish major scientific or ethical concerns from minor editorial or presentation issues and should explain the basis for important recommendations.

Reviewer Recommendations

Reviewers may recommend:

• Accept
• Minor Revision
• Major Revision
• Reject

Reviewer recommendations are advisory and do not automatically determine the final publication decision. The final editorial decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an editor formally authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

Artificial Intelligence

Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, unpublished data, patient information, reviewer reports, or other protected editorial material into generative AI systems or other external tools where confidentiality or intellectual property cannot be assured.

Any permitted use of AI during peer review must comply with the journal's confidentiality requirements and the ICMJE guidance on AI in publishing.

Publication Ethics Framework

Reviewers are encouraged to follow recognized publication-ethics principles, including the COPE Core Practices and the ICMJE Recommendations.