Reviewer Guidelines

Before you accept an invitation

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. You will see who the authors are unless the manuscript is under double-blind review; they will not see who you are. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

• Expertise. Accept where you can assess what the manuscript turns on. Partial expertise is useful if you say which parts you are assessing and which you are not.
• Conflict. Decline where you are at the same institution, have recently collaborated with an author, or hold any interest that could reasonably be seen to affect your judgment.
• Time. Decline rather than accept and be late. Suggesting an alternative reviewer is the most useful decline.
• Double-blind manuscripts. For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.

What a review covers

Scope and contribution

Is the tropical-disease question substantive rather than the setting? What does the manuscript add to what is already known, and to whom?

Methods

Could the study be repeated from what is written? Is the design capable of answering the question asked?

Results

Do the numbers support what is claimed? Are denominators present and estimates given with uncertainty? Do the text, tables and figures agree?

Interpretation

Is the conclusion confined to what the data show and to the population studied? Is association reported as association?

Limitations

Are they specific — which bias, in which direction, of roughly what size — rather than a paragraph of general caution?

Ethics and reporting

Approval and consent present and consistent with the study; registration where applicable; the relevant reporting standard followed; data availability stated.

Presentation

Comment on clarity where it affects scientific assessment. Explain which passages need clarification; evaluate the scientific contribution separately from language polishing.

What to check, by study design

Clinical tropical medicine

Diagnostic reasoning, including what was excluded. Whether treatment and outcome are interpreted against what was available in that setting. Whether severity is defined. Whether anything reported has implications for patient safety that the manuscript does not draw out.

Epidemiology and surveillance

Case definition; sampling frame; the denominator behind every rate; the surveillance system's coverage; geographic and temporal boundaries; under-ascertainment and its direction; missing data; and whether the statistics match the design.

Diagnostic accuracy studies

The reference standard and its appropriateness; whether the population spectrum reflects intended use; blinding between index and reference; sensitivity and specificity with confidence intervals; predictive values reported with their prevalence; and how indeterminate results were handled.

Parasitology and vector work

Species identification and the method used; collection site, season and effort; permissions; laboratory controls; and for susceptibility testing, the assay, the reference strain and the interpretive criteria.

Outbreak and emerging disease

Data quality and provenance; whether case attribution is supported by the diagnostic evidence; whether causal language matches the design; and whether the reporting context is given.

One Health and environmental

Whether the human tropical-health relevance is substantive and stated, and whether the animal, vector or environmental component is reported as rigorously as the human one.

Modeling and data science

Assess model assumptions, data provenance and limitations, uncertainty, and evaluation appropriate to the study and its claims. Independent-data validation, calibration, sensitivity analysis, simulation and benchmarking are used where appropriate. Methods contributions with substantive tropical-medicine relevance are eligible.

Writing the review

• Open with a short summary of what the manuscript does, so the editor can see you read it as the authors intended.
• Separate essential points from suggestions. An author cannot act on an undifferentiated list.
• Number your points and cite the section, page or line. "The methods are unclear" cannot be acted on; "the case definition in Methods, paragraph 2 does not say whether confirmation was required" can.
• Say what would resolve each point, where you can.
• Confidential comments to the editor are for concerns you should not put to the authors directly — not for the substance of your assessment, which belongs where the authors can see it.
• Write about the manuscript, never about the authors. A review is read by people whose work it concerns.

Confidentiality and conduct

Confidentiality

A manuscript under review is confidential. Do not disclose its existence or content, do not discuss it outside the review process, and do not use unpublished material in your own work.

Involving a colleague

If you want a colleague or a supervised researcher to contribute, ask the editor first and name them, so their contribution is recorded and their conflicts checked.

Files

After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.

AI tools

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.

Raising a concern

Where you suspect plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or manipulated data or images, or an ethics problem, write to the editor with the specific observation and any evidence. Do not confront the authors, and do not state a conclusion in the review itself — the journal investigates and the authors are given the opportunity to respond.

The procedures are on Editorial Policies. How editors handle a manuscript is on For editors. To review for the journal, write to [email protected] with your subject areas and your ORCID iD.

Reviewer service and resources

Apply to review · Reviewer service · Reviewer resources