Journal of Emerging Global Health (JEGH) is committed to upholding the highest standards of research integrity, transparency, originality, accountability, and ethical publishing. This policy has been prepared by synthesizing the AI-related principles reflected in the sample journal and publisher policies provided to JEGH, including common expectations regarding disclosure, authorship, confidentiality, image integrity, and human accountability.

1. Scope of the Policy

This policy applies to all authors submitting manuscripts to JEGH, all peer reviewers evaluating manuscripts for JEGH, and all editors and editorial staff involved in screening, review, decision-making, and publication workflows.

For the purposes of this policy, “AI tools” include generative AI systems and AI-assisted technologies capable of producing or modifying text, images, tables, code, data summaries, audio, video, or other forms of content.

2. Core Principles

• Transparency: relevant use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools must be disclosed clearly and accurately.
• Human accountability: authors, reviewers, and editors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, fairness, and final form of their work or decisions.
• Integrity: AI must not be used to fabricate, falsify, plagiarize, misrepresent, or obscure scholarly content.
• Confidentiality: unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial communications, and sensitive data must not be uploaded to public or non-approved AI tools.
• Scholarly responsibility: AI may support limited tasks, but it cannot replace human expertise, critical interpretation, ethical judgment, or editorial responsibility.

3. Use of AI by Authors

3.1 Acceptable Use

Authors may use AI tools in a limited and responsible manner for supportive tasks such as language editing, grammar correction, translation, formatting assistance, coding assistance, literature classification, data visualization, or the organization of ideas.

Such use is acceptable only when the authors maintain full oversight, independently review and revise all outputs, and ensure that the final manuscript remains their own original scholarly work.

3.2 Prohibited Use

• Using AI to generate or substantially write the manuscript’s core scientific argument, interpretation, discussion, or conclusions without rigorous human rewriting and verification.
• Using AI to fabricate, manipulate, or falsify data, references, citations, tables, case details, results, or any part of the research record.
• Using AI to generate synthetic or substitute data without transparent and methodologically robust justification.
• Submitting AI-generated text, code, or analysis without careful human verification, revision, and accountability.
• Using AI to disguise plagiarism, ghostwriting, or unattributed borrowing from prior sources.

3.3 Responsibility and Accountability

Authors remain solely responsible for the accuracy, originality, validity, and integrity of everything submitted to JEGH. This includes checking for hallucinated references, incorrect claims, hidden bias, privacy risks, and any possible plagiarism or copyright infringement arising from AI-assisted outputs.

3.4 AI and Authorship

AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires accountability, approval of the final manuscript, responsibility for integrity, and the capacity to respond to scholarly questions and ethical concerns—responsibilities that can only be undertaken by human contributors.

4. Disclosure Requirements for Authors

4.1 When Disclosure Is Required

Any use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools beyond routine spelling or grammar correction must be disclosed.

4.2 What Must Be Disclosed

• The full name of the AI tool used.
• The model or version, where available.
• The purpose for which the tool was used.
• The section, task, or stage of the work to which it was applied.
• The extent of the use and the degree of human oversight.

4.3 Where the Disclosure Should Appear

• If AI was used in the research process, it must be described in the Methods section with enough detail for transparency and reproducibility.
• If AI was used only during manuscript preparation, the disclosure should appear in a clearly labeled AI Declaration, Acknowledgements, or comparable note before the references.
• JEGH may request additional clarification or documentation where necessary for editorial assessment.

5. AI Use in Images, Figures, Tables, and Visual Materials

JEGH does not permit the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create, alter, manipulate, enhance, obscure, remove, move, or introduce features in photographs, clinical images, microscopy images, radiological images, figures, graphical abstracts, tables, formulas, or other visual research materials submitted with a manuscript.

Minor technical adjustments such as brightness, contrast, or color balance may be acceptable only when they do not distort, conceal, or misrepresent the underlying information.

An exception may apply only when AI-assisted image processing, imaging analysis, or visual interpretation is itself part of the research methodology. In such cases, the use must be described in a reproducible manner in the Methods section, including the tool name, version, and purpose, and JEGH may request raw or pre-processed files for verification.

Charts or graphs generated from author-produced data may be acceptable when they function only as transparent visualisation tools and faithfully represent independently produced data.

6. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Data Protection

Authors must not upload confidential, identifiable, proprietary, or ethically sensitive material into public AI tools. This includes unpublished manuscript content, participant data, patient information, institutional records, reviewer comments, and any content protected by confidentiality, privacy, or copyright obligations.

All parties are expected to consider the intellectual property, data security, privacy, and terms-of-use implications of any AI tool before using it in connection with scholarly work.

7. Use of AI by Reviewers

• Peer reviewers must preserve the confidentiality, independence, and integrity of the peer review process.
• Reviewers must not upload submitted manuscripts, figures, tables, supplementary files, or reviewer reports into public or non-approved generative AI tools.
• Reviewers must not use AI to generate the scientific evaluation or substantive judgment contained in a review report.
• Any limited use of AI for non-substantive purposes must not involve disclosure of confidential manuscript information and does not reduce the reviewer’s personal responsibility for the review.
• The critical assessment of a manuscript is a human scholarly responsibility.

8. Use of AI by Editors and Editorial Staff

• Editors and editorial staff must maintain strict confidentiality and independent human judgment throughout the editorial process.
• Editors must not upload manuscripts, reviewer reports, author correspondence, or decision letters into public generative AI tools.
• AI must not be used to make acceptance, rejection, or revision decisions on behalf of the journal.
• JEGH may use secure and approved tools to support administrative or technical tasks such as completeness checks, plagiarism screening, formatting review, or workflow support, provided that human oversight remains central at all times.
• All final editorial judgments must be made by qualified human editors.

9. Editorial Screening and Investigation

JEGH reserves the right to conduct appropriate screening and integrity checks to assess compliance with this policy. These may include plagiarism review, AI-content screening, image integrity checks, or requests for clarification, raw files, or prior manuscript versions. Under our editorial policy, manuscripts must meet a threshold of <15% AI-generated content and <20% similarity to proceed in the editorial process. As the submission exceeds both limits, it does not meet the journal’s requirements for originality and publication integrity and therefore cannot be advanced to peer review.

Any screening result will be treated as an indicator for human editorial assessment rather than as conclusive proof of misconduct.

10. Violations and Consequences

Failure to comply with this policy may constitute a breach of publication ethics and may result in one or more of the following actions:

• Request for clarification or fuller disclosure;
• Request for revision or correction;
• Rejection of the manuscript;
• Withdrawal of the submission from consideration;
• Publication of a correction, expression of concern, or retraction after publication;
• Notification of the author’s institution, employer, or funder where appropriate;
• Temporary or permanent restrictions on future submissions to JEGH.

11. Recommended Author Declaration Statements

11.1 No AI Use

The authors declare that no generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.

11.2 AI Used for Language Editing

The authors used [Tool Name, Version] solely for language editing and grammar improvement during manuscript preparation. All outputs were reviewed, revised, and verified by the authors, who take full responsibility for the final content.

11.3 AI Used in Research Support

The authors used [Tool Name, Version] for [specific purpose, such as coding assistance, literature classification, data visualization, or research support]. The use of this tool is described in the Methods section. All outputs were critically assessed and verified by the authors, who remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and interpretation of the work.

---

Short Version for Author Guidelines

The following condensed text may be used in the Instructions for Authors, submission guidelines, or author declaration templates.

Suggested concise wording for the Instructions for Authors

JEGH permits limited and responsible use of AI tools for tasks such as language editing, grammar correction, translation, coding assistance, literature classification, or data visualization. Any use of generative AI beyond routine spelling or grammar correction must be disclosed in the manuscript. Authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, integrity, and ethical compliance of all submitted content. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Generative AI must not be used to fabricate or falsify data, references, figures, tables, or interpretations, and must not be used to create or manipulate images or visual research materials unless such use is part of the study methodology and is fully described in the Methods section. Reviewers and editors must preserve confidentiality and must not upload unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, or editorial communications into public AI tools. Under JEGH editorial policy, manuscripts must meet a threshold of <15% AI-generated content and <20% similarity to proceed in the editorial process. Submissions exceeding these limits may not be advanced to peer review.

Suggested submission form declaration

We confirm that any use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in connection with this manuscript has been disclosed accurately, that no AI tool has been listed as an author, and that all authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and ethical compliance of the submitted work.