General Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

All manuscripts submitted to Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) are first reviewed by a member of the editorial staff. If we determine that the manuscript has sufficient priority and warrants further review, we then assign it to at least two peer reviewers who possess expertise in the subject covered by the manuscript. Some papers may require additional assessment by expert statistical reviewers.

• We will request each reviewer’s permission before forwarding a manuscript, limit review requests to two or three per year per reviewer, and allow at least two weeks to complete reviews.

• We ask that all reviewers complete their evaluations at ScholarOne Manuscripts. Peer reviewers will be supplied with log-in information once acceptance of the review is confirmed.

• Manuscripts will be sent by journal editorial staff in confidence to reviewers. Reviewers should not discuss articles under review with anyone.

• Restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence (AI): uploading or entering any part of the manuscript of your review into a public chatbot or large language model (eg, ChatGPT, Google Gemini) is prohibited as a violation of the confidentiality of the review process. As a peer reviewer you are responsible for the content of your review.

• We have a single-anonymous review process; while authors are identified to reviewers, reviewers remain anonymous to authors.

• We ask reviewers to disclose any conflicts of interest or personal or professional biases that may render them unable to provide a fair and objective assessment of the manuscript under review. Reviewers are encouraged to consult the editor in chief if they have any questions about such matters, and they are asked to disqualify themselves if they consider themselves unable to give an impartial assessment. This information is kept confidential and is not revealed to authors or other reviewers.

• We ask reviewers to assess manuscripts for importance, originality, clarity, validity, adequacy of method, and other qualities.

• We ask reviewers to give detailed comments (with references, whenever possible) that will help authors to improve their papers and PCD editors to decide whether to publish.

• Reviewers make recommendations to accept, accept after minor revision, reconsider after major revision, or reject.

• Reviewers serve as advisors to PCD editors, who make final decisions.

• We inform reviewers of our decisions to accept or reject papers.

• Even if we do not accept a manuscript for publication, we send the reviewers’ comments to the author.

• We ask reviewers to decline a review if they are unable to complete it within the required time.

• We ask authors to direct all queries about peer reviewers to the editorial staff.

• We ask reviewers not to contact authors but to direct all queries to the editorial staff.

• After the review process is completed, we ask reviewers to destroy manuscript copies.

• We may ask reviewers to reevaluate manuscripts that were revised and resubmitted according to their revisions, or we may submit the revised manuscripts to new reviewers.

• We welcome suggestions from authors for appropriate peer reviewers.

For each article reviewed, reviewers are requested to complete a score sheet on ScholarOne Manuscripts, which contains the same information as the Reviewer’s Confidential Manuscript Assessment for the Editor.