Review process
I. PEER REVIEW FLOWCHART
II. PEER REVIEW PROCESS
Based on the core principles of double-blind peer review in accordance with international practice, the Journal of Community Medicine establishes the following peer review process:
1. Double-blind Peer Review:
o The identities of both authors and reviewers are kept strictly confidential throughout the process. Manuscripts sent for review must have all author names, affiliations, funding sources and any other identifying information removed.
2. Five-step process from submission to decision:
o Step 1 (Desk review): The Editorial Office checks formatting and research scope, screens for plagiarism using specialized software, and verifies research ethics documentation (IRB/approval letter).
o Step 2 (Reviewer invitation): At least 02 independent experts with relevant in-depth expertise are assigned. Reviewers must accept or decline the invitation within 03 working days.
o Step 3 (Scholarly evaluation): Reviewers assess the manuscript using the standard review form within 14–21 days.
o Step 4 (Consolidation and feedback): The Editorial Office consolidates the reviews, mediates in case of major disagreement between reviewers, and forwards revision requests to the authors.
o Step 5 (Publication decision): The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision based on the quality of the revised manuscript.
3. Evaluation criteria for reviewers:
o A comprehensive assessment covering: relevance and novel contribution to health sciences; accuracy of the research methodology (sample size, medical statistical techniques); integrity of the Results and Discussion; and standardization of the References.
4. Confidentiality, Conflicts of Interest and Scientific Integrity:
o Strict confidentiality: Reviewers must not share the manuscript or use its ideas before publication, and in particular must not upload the manuscript to public AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude...) to assist in writing their comments (a violation of COPE data confidentiality policy).
o Conflicts of interest: Reviewers must decline to review if they have an institutional affiliation, recent research collaboration, or direct competing interest with the author team.
5. Categories of Review Decisions:
o Four clear recommendation levels are provided: Accept without revision (Accept); Accept after minor revision (Minor Revision); Major revision with re-review (Major Revision); Reject (Reject).
I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The Journal of Community Medicine applies Double-blind Peer Review to all submitted manuscripts. Under this principle, the identities of authors and reviewers are fully concealed from each other throughout the review process. The process is designed in close alignment with the international standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the regulations of the State Council for Professorship on academic integrity, objectivity and transparency.
II. STANDARD 5-STEP PEER REVIEW PROCESS
The handling and review of a scientific manuscript at the Journal of Community Medicine strictly follows the process below:
Step 1: Desk Review
• Immediately after submission, the Section Editor checks the eligibility of the manuscript within 03–05 working days.
• The screening covers: fit with the Journal's aims and scope; manuscript formatting according to the Author Guidelines; plagiarism screening using specialized software (the similarity rate must be below the prescribed threshold); and verification of accompanying documents (Conflict of Interest declaration, approval from the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee – IRB, if applicable).
• Manuscripts that do not meet the requirements at this stage will be rejected immediately (Desk Reject) or returned to the authors for completion.
Step 2: Inviting Independent Reviewers
• Manuscripts that pass the desk review have all identifying information (author names, academic titles, degrees, affiliations, funding information) removed before being sent out.
• The Editorial Office selects and sends an invitation, together with the manuscript abstract, to independent reviewers with the competence and in-depth research experience relevant to the article.
• Reviewers have 05 days to accept or decline the invitation. If a reviewer declines, the Editorial Office will invite an alternative reviewer.
Step 3: Independent Scholarly Evaluation
• After accepting the invitation, reviewers have 14 to 21 days to complete the evaluation and submit the Review Report to the Editorial Office via the online system.
• Reviews must be objective, scientifically constructive and based on the Journal's standardized criteria form.
Step 4: Consolidation of Reviews and Revision Requests
• The Editor consolidates the reviewers' comments.
• In the event of a major disagreement between the 02 reviewers (one recommending acceptance and the other rejection), the Editorial Office will invite an independent third reviewer before deciding how to proceed.
• The consolidated results, together with detailed revision requests (if any), are sent to the corresponding author. Authors are required to respond and revise the manuscript within the specified period (usually 7–14 days).
Step 5: Final Publication Decision
• The revised manuscript is checked by the Editor against the authors' response letter. Where necessary (Major Revision), the revised manuscript is sent back to the original reviewers for a second round of review.
• The Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision based on the Editor's quality report and the consensus of the reviewers.
III. EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR REVIEWERS
Reviewers analyze and evaluate the manuscript based on the following 6 core aspects:
1. Relevance and Contribution: Does the study provide new knowledge, new solutions or valuable perspectives for community medicine, epidemiology or health management?
2. Research Methodology: Are the study design, sampling procedure, sample size, data collection instruments and medical statistical analysis techniques accurate, reliable and reproducible?
3. Research Ethics: Are the rights and information confidentiality of study participants (patients, community members) protected and in compliance with biomedical regulations?
4. Results and Discussion: Are the data presented logically, and are the tables and figures clear? Is the discussion in-depth, with scientific comparison to domestic and international studies that highlights the conclusions?
5. Structure and Writing Style: Is the scientific language accurate and coherent? Does the article follow the standard structure of a medical research paper?
6. References: Are the cited references up to date, accurate and formatted according to the Journal's requirements?
IV. ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS
1. Strict confidentiality: Reviewers must treat the manuscript as a confidential document. They must not store, share or discuss its content with third parties, or use unpublished findings from the article for personal purposes.
2. Prohibition on public AI tools: Reviewers must not copy or upload the manuscript or its abstract to public generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude...) to request comments or analysis. Doing so is a serious violation of COPE confidentiality policy.
3. Declaration of conflicts of interest: Reviewers must proactively inform the Editorial Office and decline to review if they recognize that the article belongs to a close colleague, a student, someone in the same institution, or if there is a competing or collaborative financial or organizational interest with the authors.
4. Timeliness: If unable to complete the review on time due to unforeseen commitments, reviewers must notify the Editorial Office immediately so that another reviewer can be assigned, avoiding delays to the authors' publication process.
V. RECOMMENDATION CATEGORIES
In the Review Report, reviewers select one of the following 4 recommendations:
• Accept: The article is of excellent quality, complete in structure, and requires no further revision.
• Minor Revision: The article is of good quality and only needs corrections to language, tables, or brief additional explanations as requested.
• Major Revision: The article has a good idea, but the methodology, results or arguments have serious shortcomings; additional data, re-analysis of statistics or rewriting of the discussion are required, followed by a second round of review.
• Reject: The article violates scientific ethics, has seriously flawed methodology, or makes no meaningful scientific contribution to the field.