To enhance transparency and open scientific discourse, the Journal of the Academy of Public Health has a peer-review process different from other journals.

1.        As an open peer review journal, your review will be published as a commentary together with and at the same time as the article being reviewed. Readers will be able to access the full chain of discourse surrounding our published articles at all times. JAPH will often publish research and other peer-reviewed submissions before the reviews are received, however, in which case the reviews are appended to the article immediately upon receipt. Reviewers for JAPH may chose whether their review appears anonymously or signed; in either case, the published review will receive a DOI.

2.        Peer review is the added value that scientific journals provide compared to preprint depositories. To acknowledge your vital work as a reviewer, we are pleased provide a $500 honorarium for each peer-review. We are a non-profit publisher and are able to accomodate generous honoraria through our modest article processing fees.

3.        We value honesty and rigor in our peer reviews above all else. If there are glaring methodological or design flaws in the paper under review, we encourage our reviewers to express their critique as thoroughly as possible for the benefit of all readers and fellow scientists. While rigor is important in open peer reviews, so is professionalism; personal attacks are never permitted and will not be published.

4.        One of the many benefits of our open peer review model is the insight and guidance it can provide to students and younger researchers. A strong peer review will describe specific failures in the reviewed paper and suggest alternative, stronger methods. We encourage reviewers to consider this in their reviews where possible.

5.        Unlike peer review for traditional journals, we ask that you do not opine on whether the manuscript should or should not be published. We publish all research submissions from members of the Academy of Public Health, and therefore have no use for reviews that express an opinion on whether a manuscript should be published. Submissions from non-Academy member scholars will receive published reviews as well, and those reviews should adhere to the same standards of rigor, honesty, and professionalism. Editors will seek reviewer guidance on publishing decisions for manuscripts submitted by non-Academy members.

6.        We do not expect you to correct spelling and grammar mistakes in the manuscript. A copy editor will do that in parallel with your review.

7.        If there are minor factual errors, typos or unclear passages in the article, you may communicate those separate from your published review, so that the authors can correct their manuscript before publication. You can flag these to our managing editor, reachable at [email protected]. Any major problems should be addressed in your review.

8.      The length of a review is typically between 600 and 1,200 words, but we can accomodate reviews of greater length. 

9.      We strive for rapid publication of articles, so please submit your review within two weeks of agreeing to write one.

10.      All article authors will have the opportunity to respond to your review in an Author Rejoinder, also published alongside the original article version. Authors may also submit new versions of their article. We can accomodate as many as six published versions.

11.      If there is a revised version of the manuscript, and/or an author rejoinder, you have the option to summarize your overall take in a short reviewer closure. Using less than 200 words, the purpose is not to bring up new or additional concerns, but to provide the reader with an overall assessment of the article and whether the authors were able to address the comments raised in the review. The reviewer closure could be as simple as a single sentence, such as “The authors have addressed all the concerns raised in my review”, or, “The authors failed to address the key problems identified in the review”.

12.      Please specify if you want to receive the $500 honorarium as a check or bank transfer, or if you want to save it in the system to use as credit for future publication fees. If the former, you may designate either yourself as the recipient, or some organization that you are affiliated with.