Editorial Note
Editor-in-Chief
Kromhout and Burstyn criticize the journal's procedures as well as the original paper, and their points were discussed at length at an Editorial Board meeting. They are right to highlight that many hygiene surveys do not use modern statistical treatments when they should, and the discussion of this problem in Ogden (2006) was prompted by this letter. Surveys will often require the techniques to which Kromhout and Burstyn have been important contributors, but perhaps the full statistical treatments will not always be needed. The right principle is surely that the survey and its analysis should be good enough to justify the conclusions drawn from it. We have modified our instructions to authors to say this, and hope to develop more detailed guidance for authors, which will guide our reviews in future. We are grateful to Kromhout and Burstyn for raising this important point.
We do not, however, agree with their implication that ‘most academic journals’ require that references are to peer-reviewed publications. They told us separately about two journals that do, but a quick check of Uniform Requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, Nature, British Medical Journal, the Royal Society of Chemistry journals, and other journals in our own field failed to find another example. References should be included which are essential to the development of an argument or hypothesis, or which illuminate or explain the methods used in the paper, and they should be accessible to readers.
All contributions to this journal which make scientific points are peer reviewed. This will always be an imperfect process, and we value criticisms which can improve it.
REFERENCES
Ogden T. Annals of Occupational Hygiene at volume 50: many achievements, a few mistakes, and an interesting future. Ann Occup Hyg (2006) 50:751–64.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||