--- name: environmental-health-perspectives description: Use when targeting Environmental Health Perspectives or deciding whether an environmental-health manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the public-health-relevance and methodological-rigor bar, epidemiological/toxicological expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Environmental Health Perspectives (environmental-health-perspectives) ## Journal positioning Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) is a peer-reviewed environmental-health journal published with support from the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), connecting environmental exposures to human health with strong public-health and policy relevance. Its defining expectation is **public-health significance backed by rigorous epidemiology or toxicology**: a study whose findings inform protection of human health and sit within a public-health and regulatory context. Relative to Environment International's broader environmental-science-plus-health scope, EHP is framed around the population-health and policy mission and holds an explicit standard for transparency and reproducibility. A purely environmental-chemistry or mechanistic study with no clear human-health and public-health implication is a weak fit. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live EHP submission guidance. ## When to trigger - The author names EHP and wants a fit/framing check for an environmental-health paper with public-health relevance. - An exposure–health or toxicology study must be re-framed around its population-health and policy implications. - The author is deciding between EHP and Environment International, or between EHP and a broader environmental-science venue. - The author needs EHP's public-health-relevance bar and its rigor/transparency expectations. ## Scope & topic fit - Environmental epidemiology linking exposures (air, water, chemicals, climate-related hazards, the built and occupational environment) to human health outcomes. - Mechanistic and predictive toxicology, including new-approach methodologies, when anchored to human health-relevance and hazard interpretation. - Children's and developmental environmental health and effects in susceptible or vulnerable populations. - Climate change and health, environmental justice, and disparities in exposure and outcomes. - Exposure science and biomonitoring with a clear public-health interpretation and risk context. - Reviews, commentaries, and science-to-policy synthesis that advance environmental-health decision-making. ## Method & evidence bar - The contribution must carry **public-health significance**: findings that inform human-health protection, not exposure characterization or mechanism for its own sake. - Epidemiological studies require rigorous design, confounding and bias control, exposure- misclassification handling, sensitivity analyses, and cautious causal language. - Toxicological studies need appropriate models, dose-response design, replication, and clear human-health-relevance interpretation; relevance of doses to real exposures should be discussed. - The journal emphasizes transparency and reproducibility: pre-specified analyses where appropriate, full reporting of methods, and data/code availability. - Risk and policy-relevant claims must be proportionate to the evidence and acknowledge uncertainty; over-reach beyond the data is a recurring problem. - Studies of vulnerable populations and environmental-justice questions require careful, ethically grounded design and interpretation. ## Structure & house style - Standard research-article format with strong framing of the public-health question and decision relevance; the journal also publishes reviews and commentaries — re-check current article types and length on the live guide. - The introduction must establish the public-health and policy context and the specific health question, not only the environmental novelty. - Figures and tables should be quantitative and interpretation-focused (effect estimates with confidence intervals, exposure–response relationships), with full models and diagnostics in SI. - Methods, data, and code transparency are expected; follow the journal's human-subjects, ethics, and data-availability requirements. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official-source anchors, then cite the current EHP page you checked. - Search the live site for "Environmental Health Perspectives instructions for authors" and follow the current version. - Re-check article types, length, abstract format, and any structured-abstract or summary requirements. - Confirm epidemiology/toxicology reporting-guideline expectations and ethics/consent and animal-care statements. - Re-check the data-, code-, and reproducibility-availability policy and any deposition requirements. - Re-check competing-interests, funding (including any disclosure norms relevant to a publicly supported journal), author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and open-access terms. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The findings carry clear public-health significance and decision relevance, not exposure/mechanism alone. - [ ] Epidemiology controls confounding/bias and misclassification, with sensitivity analyses and cautious causal language. - [ ] Toxicology uses appropriate models, dose-response design, and human-health-relevance interpretation. - [ ] Methods, data, and code transparency meet the journal's reproducibility expectations. - [ ] Risk/policy claims are proportionate to the evidence and state uncertainty. - [ ] Ethics, animal-care, and reporting-guideline requirements are addressed. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A study with no clear human-health and public-health implication (exposure or mechanism only). - Epidemiology with weak design, uncontrolled confounding, or over-stated causal claims. - Toxicology at exposures irrelevant to humans, or without dose-response and replication. - Policy/risk over-reach unsupported by the evidence or ignoring uncertainty. - Insufficient transparency: missing methods detail or non-compliant data/code availability. - Scope mismatch: a pure environmental-chemistry, monitoring, or ecology paper without the human-health/public-health link. ## Re-routing decision - Broader environmental-science-plus-health or method-forward exposure science → `environment-international`. - Pollutant sources/fate and ecological (non-human) impact → `environmental-pollution`. - Major clinical/population-health epidemiology scope → `the-lancet`. - Broad solutions/sustainability framing → `nature-sustainability`. - Environmental-engineering/technology emphasis → `environmental-science-and-technology`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Environmental Health Perspectives [Topic tags] <2–3 closest environmental-health topics> [Public-health significance] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```