Editorial policies

Acknowledge only those people who have made substantial contributions to the study, with their consent. All sources of funding support relevant to the published work should be included. Please also include a data availability statement with a link to the repository used.

Transparency is key to the use of AI in science publishing – it is needed to reassure editors, reviewers and readers about the work’s credibility. We require authors to declare the proportion of their manuscript generated using AI and remind them that they remain accountable for the accuracy of their published work. It should be the authors' concepts that are presented, but it is acceptable to use AI to help improve the quality of the writing. It is not acceptable to use AI to generate any data presented (apart from in exceptional cases with the prior approval of the Editor-in-Chief). As a rule, there should be minimal processing of data or figures.

We also ask peer reviewers to declare the extent to which AI has been used to generate a review of an article. (see also C.W.M. Ong, Blackbourn, HD, Migliori, GB. GPT-4, artificial intelligence and implications for publishing. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis 2023;27(6):425-426).

Please follow the criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE), who recommend that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Corresponding author: please designate one corresponding author with responsibility for:

1. Being the primary contact responsible for all submitted content (text, figures and tables)
2. Ensuring that authorship is granted appropriately to contributors
3. Ensuring that all authors approve the content and submission of the paper, as well as edits made through the revision and production processes
4. Ensuring adherence to all editorial policies
5. Identifying and declaring conflicts of interest on behalf of all authors
6. Ensuring communication with the journal (before and after publication) and for fulfilling requests for access to data.

Authorship changes: If authors wish to make changes to the author listthey must provide written consent from all authors, including those that are added or removed,and providing this with the revised manuscript. Publication of the manuscript may be paused while a change in authorship request is being considered by the editor.

Clinical trials must be registered in a WHO compliant clinical trial registry and reported  according to CONSORT guidelines. 

All conflicts of interest should be declared. Examples of financial and non-financial interests that should be reported include shares in companies related to the submitted work, or employment or consultancy fees for companies that could have interests related to the work.

If none, at the end of the Acknowledgements section, state 'Conflicts of interest: none declared'.

All content is preserved in perpetuity via CLOCKSS and LOCKSS.

Authors retain copyright and can reuse the article for any purpose they see fit, including to send a copy of the PDF to colleagues, to post on ResearchGate or to deposit on institutional websites.

We follow the COPE guidelines on retraction when assessing the need for an article to be corrected or retracted - see https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4

We strongly encourage authors to share the data and other elements presented. Authors may include a data availability statement within the Acknowledgements section and provide a link to an appropriate public repository, or include details on how the data can be obtained.

We support international ethical standards related to research and publication of research that relate to vulnerable groups and individuals, see for example ‘World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki – ethical principles for medical research involving human participants’

All studies involving human subjects should included details of ethical approval (or a statement as to why it was not required) along with details of informed consent. This should be provided at the end of the Methods section of all research studies.

The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board are responsible for overseeing peer review. After initial triage by the Editor-in-Chief, each article is assigned to an Associate Editor to identify peer reviewers. The final decision on whether to accept or reject submissions is the responsibility of the assigned Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief. 

We use single-anonymous peer review (i.e., the reviewers know the identify of the authors of an article, but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers). This allows reviewers to give feedback without fear of repercussions.

Authors who wish to include material from other copyrighted sources must seek permission from the copyright holders and provide written evidence of this permission at the time the article is submitted.

The Journal checks for plagiarism. If suspected, we follow the guidelines set out by the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE)

Please avoid terms that may be perceived to be stigmatising, such as “TB suspect” or “defaulter”. Authors can refer to the following publication: Zachariah R. et al., Language in tuberculosis services: can we change to patient-centred terminology and stop the paradigm of blaming the patients? Int J Tuberc Lung Dis 2012; 16: 714–717

We work with Sponsors/Advertisers to create content that benefits our community and the Sponsor/Advertiser.

All potential partners are subject to a due diligence process to avoid any conflicts of interest. We have a strict policy to ensure the partner does not have any direct business relationship with, or knowingly received payment or other support from any tobacco product manufacturer.

Every effort is made to ensure that no inaccurate or misleading data or statements appear in our journals, but the data and opinions are the responsibility of the authors of each article. Also, although every effort is made to ensure that drug doses are presented accurately, readers are advised that dosage should be followed in conjunction with the drug manufacturer’s published literature.