Journal of Hospital Infection

About the journal

The Journal of Hospital Infection (JHI) is an editorially-independent scientific publication of the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS).

The aim of the journal is to publish high-quality research and information relating to infection prevention and control (IPC) in healthcare settings that is relevant to an international audience.
The JHI is a hybrid journal with both traditional (fee-free) and open access options.

Scope of the journal

The JHI welcomes submissions that relate to all aspects of IPC in healthcare settings. This includes submissions that:

• Provide new insight into the epidemiology, surveillance, or prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) and antimicrobial resistance in healthcare settings
• Provide new insight into cleaning, disinfection and decontamination
• Provide new insight into the design of healthcare premises
• Describe novel aspects of outbreaks of infection
• Throw light on techniques for effective antimicrobial stewardship
• Describe novel techniques (laboratory-based or point of care) for the detection of infection or antimicrobial resistance in the healthcare setting, particularly if these can be used to facilitate IPC
• Improve understanding of the motivations of safe healthcare behaviour, or describe techniques for achieving behavioural and cultural change
• Improve understanding of the use of IT systems in infection surveillance and IPC

We also welcome submissions that relate to national policies or guidelines, especially where the subject matter is of international relevance.

Although our readership is predominantly clinical, we are also pleased to receive basic science submissions that have clinical relevance.

Contact information and queries

Authors may send queries to the Editorial Office.

Email: [email protected]
Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7713 0273
Further information regarding JHI article types, correct formatting of articles for submission to the JHI, and authorship criteria can be found below.

Article types

The JHI articles fall into two categories: long-form and short-form articles. We invite articles of the following types:

Long-form articles

Reviews

We welcome both general reviews, that summarize the current understanding and research on a topic, and systematic reviews, that provide a thorough critical assessment of current evidence.

Although we encourage the submission of review articles, before you start work on a review, we do advise that you check with the editorial office that the topic of your review is suitable, and that a similar review has not already been commissioned by the Editorial Team.

Reviews are generally divided into the following sections:

• Summary
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• Conflict of interest statement
• Funding statement
• References

A combined Results and Discussion section may be appropriate, especially for general reviews.

General reviews. An unstructured Summary of up to 250 words is required. The word limit for the main text of the article (excluding the Summary and References) is 4000 words. Each figure and/or table counts as 200 words towards the total. The JHI also accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your review.

Systematic reviews. Authors of systematic reviews and meta-analyses are encouraged to present these according to the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

A structured summary of up to 250 words is required. There is no word limit for this article format. However, authors are encouraged to provide material that enhances, but is not essential in the main manuscript, as electronic supplementary material.

Original research articles

Original research articles are divided into the following sections:

• Structured summary (250 words maximum)
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• Conflict of interest statement
• Funding statement
• References

The upper word limit for the main text of the article (excluding the Summary and References) is 4000 words. Each figure and/or table counts as 200 words towards the total. The JHI also accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research.

Shorter research reports. If your original research article is under 2000 words, you may wish to consider a shorter, unstructured summary, and a separate conclusion section may not be required. A combined results and discussion section may also be more appropriate. Articles of this length should contain no more than two figures or tables (each counting as 200 words), and have a maximum of ten references.

National or society guidelines

We encourage authors to contact the office as soon as possible during guideline development to discuss a publishing strategy for their guidelines.

Short-form articles

Letters to the editor

We welcome letters relating to, or responding to, recently published items in the journal. Where appropriate, these will be shown to the authors of the original article prior to publication, who will be invited to respond.

We also welcome correspondence relating to general observations about IPC practice. We will also consider publishing reports of good quality small research projects in the form of a letter, where the findings are of general interest.

Letters should contain up to 800 words of text and no more than eight references. One table or figure is permitted. Letters should not contain structural headings or a summary.

Practice points

These are short peer-reviewed articles that are intended for communication of research, audit or clinical experience (whether positive or negative) that would be of general interest but are not substantial enough for publication as either a short report or full paper. Previously reserved only for Gram-negative bloodstream infections and SARS-CoV-2 infections, the JHI has now opened the article type up to cover initial observations in all fields relating to IPC in healthcare settings.

Practice points are up to 800 words in length with no more than eight references. One table or figure is allowed. There should be no structured headings within the article. A separate summary, and keywords, are not required. An example of this article type is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195670117305911.

Case reports and outbreak reports

We recommend that case reports and outbreak reports be submitted to the JHI's sister journal Infection Prevention in Practice (IPIP), which is an open access title. IPIP is fully indexed in PubMed, Scopus and the Directory of Open Access Journals. The journal is competitively priced, and offers fee waivers or discounts for Healthcare Infection Society Members and authors from countries eligible for the Research4Life scheme.

Other article types

The JHI will consider publishing other article types, such as commentaries or editorials, that are relevant to IPC. We ask authors to check with the editorial office beforehand to ensure that the proposed subject matter and format are appropriate.

Article preparation and submission

Our online submission system guides you through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files.

Please submit your article via https://jhi.edmgr.com.

An email address must be provided to aid processing of manuscripts.

Structuring and writing your article

Submission checklist

Please refer to the article types listed above for more information on your chosen article type. A submission checklist can be found here.

Note on language

The language of the JHI is British English. Please adjust your spell checker if necessary. British spellings include diarrhoea, Haemophilus, haematology, paediatrics, leucocyte, leukaemia, bacteraemia, sulphonamides, aetiology. Please note the journal uses UK 'z' spelling (e.g., colonizes) and meticillin, not methicillin.

Elsevier's Language Services offers assistance with language editing, and there are free resources available to walk you through writing your article here: https://www.elsevier.com/authors/tools-and-resources.

Declaration of competing interests and authorship confirmation

Declaration of competing interests

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. To do so simply, use this tool or fill in the ICMJE authorship form (this template) and upload to the submission system at the 'Attach/Upload Files' step.

Any competing interests should also be summarised in the manuscript file under the heading 'competing interests', and you will be asked to copy this competing interest statement to our submission system questionnaire. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches. More information.

Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing

The below guidance only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans, as outlined in Elsevier’s AI policy for authors.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Disclosure instructions
Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled ‘Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process’.

Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.

This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc. If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.

Authorship

The JHI follows the ICMJE guidance on authorship. Authorship is 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.

Contributors who meet fewer than all four of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but their contributions can be acknowledged in the acknowledgements section. The JHI requires a hand signed statement from every individual author listed confirming that they have read and agree to the final draft before submission. This can be included in your ICMJE competing interests form, or you can use the separate form here.

More detail on authorship vs. contribution can be read on the ICMJE website.

Group authorship

If you have a collective or group author as part of your authorship list, please clearly state which authors meet the ICMJE criteria listed above.

Authors who do not meet these criteria, or who do not submit a signed competing interest/authorship form, will be listed as contributors in the acknowledgements.

Author contributions: CRediT

For transparency, we ask authors to submit an author statement file outlining their individual contributions to the paper using the relevant CRediT roles: Conceptualisation; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualisation; Writing - original draft; Writing - review & editing.
Authorship statements should be formatted with the names of authors first and CRediT role(s) following. More details and an example can be seen here.

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor.
To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (email, signed statement) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. The publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of a preprint, an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article will be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

Figures, tables and other artwork

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available from Elsevier. You are urged to visit this site for up-to-date details on file format, resolution, illustrations services and more. Some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

General points

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
• Submit each illustration as a separate file.
• Ensure that colour images are accessible to all, including those with impaired colour vision.

Figures

Figures should be in finished form suitable for reproduction. Photographs should have strong contrast and be trimmed to exclude unnecessary background. Figure details should be easy to see and read at the final size. Upload figures separately from your main manuscript. They will appear in the system-generated PDF at the end of your file.

Photographs which contain images of people should endeavour to make them unidentifiable. Where this is not possible the journal will require evidence of informed consent to publication of their likeness before publication.

Figure captions

A short explicit legend must be provided for each figure. All such legends should be listed together in the final section of the manuscript, and should not be attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

All illustrations are to be numbered with Arabic numerals (e.g. Figures 1, 2, 3 etc.) without abbreviation, in the order of their first mention in the text.

Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables should be numbered consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text, in Roman numerals (e.g. Table I, II, III, IV).
Each table should be on a separate sheet after the references and should include a title which makes the meaning clear without reference to the text. Use '-' for 'no observation', or 'not measured'.

Supplementary material

The JHI accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your original research and review articles.
Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting tables, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips, videos and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats.

Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. Authors should submit the material in Editorial Manager separately from their main manuscript file under the category 'Supplementary data'. In the main manuscript file, please list supplemental files as 'Supplementary Table A1', 'Supplementary Figure A2', etc. and refer to files as such in the text. Please include a concise and descriptive caption for each file

Within the supplementary material files, please repeat the concise and descriptive caption, and please ensure all references within supplemental material are self-contained and not included in the main manuscript's reference list.

Supplementary material will be published at the discretion of the Editor.

Reference style

Please ensure your references are in NLM Style: examples of formatted references can be found here.

In the text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

In the reference list: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:
[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2010;163:51-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number:
[2] Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1–2):40–6.

Reference to a book:
[3] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 4th ed. New York: Longman; 2000.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[4] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 2009, p. 281–304.

Reference to a website:
[5] Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/; 2003 [accessed 13 March 2003].

Reference to a dataset:
[dataset] [6] Oguro M, Imahiro S, Saito S, Nakashizuka T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Note the shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51–9, and that for more than six authors the first six should be listed followed by 'et al.' For further details you are referred to Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals', J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927–34.

Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Reference links

Increased discoverability of research and high-quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation.
When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors. Use of the DOI is encouraged.

Journal abbreviations source

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations.

Formatting of funding sources

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

"Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa]."

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.
Healthcare Infection Society-funded authors must remember to include their grant numbers in their funding statement.

File types

Please submit your paper in an editable file type (a Word document or similar) as this is required to typeset your article for final publication. Our copyeditors cannot work with LaTeX files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file for use in the peer-review process.

The text should be in single-column, portrait format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not justify the text. You can use bold, italics, subscripts, superscripts, etc.
Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text.

All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail. More information can be found in the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier.

Notes on writing style

Numbers and measurements

Write out numbers one to nine unless they are included in measurements (e.g. 5 mL). Spell out numbers greater than nine only if they begin a sentence, or when clarity requires it. Numbers above and including 10,000 have a comma. A decimal point is preceded by a number or cypher, e.g. '0.5'. Decimal points in columns should be aligned vertically.

Measurements may be expressed in SI or non-metric units. Use 10 mL/h rather than −1 or per. When referring to microbial concentrations use expressions such as '10x', not 'x log10'. When referring to changes in microbial concentration, use expressions such as 'reduced by a factor of 10x', not 'reduced by x log10'; 'a log10 reduction factor of x' may also be used.

Statistics

Include P values and confidence intervals where appropriate. The name and version of any statistical computer package should be written out in full.

Bacterial nomenclature

Organisms should be referred to by their scientific names according to the binomial system. When first mentioned the name should be spelt in full and written in italics. Afterwards the genus should be abbreviated to its initial letter (e.g. 'S. aureus' not 'Staph. aureus'). If abbreviation is likely to cause confusion or render the intended meaning unclear spell out the names of microbes in full.
When the genus alone is used as a noun or adjective, use lower case roman not underlined, (e.g. 'organisms were staphylococci' and 'acinetobacter infection'). If the genus is specifically referred to, use italics (e.g. 'organisms of the genus Staphylococcus'). For genus in plural, use lower case roman (e.g. 'salmonellae'); plurals may be anglicized (e.g.'salmonellas'). For trivial names, use lower case roman (e.g. 'meningococcus').

Drugs

These should be referred to by their approved generic names. Do not use the proprietary name, as this may vary between countries.

Note. The Editor retains the customary right to make changes in style and language without consultation to ensure accuracy, clarity and comprehension to our wide readership.

Peer review and editorial process

Your submission will be received by the Editorial office.

Papers that are submitted without all authors' conflict of interest statements, hand-signed authorship confirmations or without references or other features that do not comply with the instructions to authors will be returned to their authors and will not be considered for publication until they have been corrected and resubmitted.

You will receive an acknowledgement by email containing your unique reference number which should be used in all further communications.

All newly submitted papers are first considered by the Editorial Team.

Around two-thirds of all submissions are rejected at this stage. The main reasons for papers being rejected at this stage are that the subject material does not fall within the scope of the JHI, or the findings are not sufficiently novel to merit publication in an international journal. We aim to return a decision to the authors on these papers within seven days, and will always provide a reason why we have rejected the paper.

The remaining papers are sent out for single blind peer review. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final.

Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves, or where they have identified a conflict of interest or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups.

Accepted articles will be published online before appearing in the printed journal. These preprint online versions are citable by the digital object identifier (DOI).

Tracking the progress of your submission prior to acceptance

The corresponding author can log in to Editorial Manager at any time to check the status of your submitted article. The following statements give an indication of its status in the peer-review process.

With Editor. The Editor has received your submission for initial consideration.

Under review. Your submission is being peer reviewed.

All reviews complete. The requested peer reviews have been completed. After assessment of the reviews additional review maybe required. In such cases the status will return to 'Under review' until the additional reviews are complete.

With Editor. This status returns when the Editorial Team are processing your submission after peer review. Please note there are many types of Editors within the team and the status will not change as it moves between them.

Article transfer

This journal uses Elsevier's Article Transfer Service to find the best home for your manuscript. This means that if an editor feels your manuscript is more suitable for an alternative journal, you might be asked to consider transferring the manuscript to such a journal. The recommendation might be provided by a Journal Editor, a dedicated Scientific Managing Editor, a tool assisted recommendation, or a combination. If you agree, your manuscript will be transferred, though you will have the opportunity to make changes to the manuscript before the submission is complete. Please note that your manuscript will be independently reviewed by the new journal. More information.

After acceptance

Copyedit

All manuscripts submitted to the JHI are subject to copyediting before acceptance to ensure manuscripts are consistent with journal style.

Proofs

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves.

To ensure a fast publication process, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within two days.

Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download the free Adobe Reader, version 9 (or higher). Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site.

If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and scan the pages and return via e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.

Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

Offprints

The corresponding author will, at no cost, receive a customized Share Link providing 50 days free access to the final published version of the article on ScienceDirect. The Share Link can be used for sharing the article via any communication channel, including email and social media. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. Corresponding authors who have published their article gold open access do not receive a Share Link as their final published version of the article is available open access on ScienceDirect and can be shared through the article DOI link.

Ethics in publishing

Please see Elsevier information on ethics in publishing for more details. Key elements relevant to the JHI are included below.

Informed consent and patient details

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in an Elsevier publication. Written consents must be retained by the author but copies should not be provided to the journal. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises) the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained. For more information, please review the Elsevier policy on the use of images or personal information of patients or other individuals. Unless you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Studies in humans and animals

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Use of inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Content should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition; and use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions. We advise authors to seek gender neutrality by using plural nouns ('clinicians', 'patients/clients') as default to avoid using 'he', 'she,' or 'he/she.' We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors that refer to personal attributes such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition unless they are relevant and valid. When coding terminology is used, we recommend to avoid offensive or exclusionary terms such as 'master', 'slave', 'blacklist' and 'whitelist'. We suggest using alternatives that are more appropriate and (self-) explanatory such as 'primary', 'secondary', 'blocklist' and 'allowlist'. These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.

Journal policies

Open access

Please visit our Open Access page for more information about open access options on the JHI and the Healthcare Infection Society discount.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (see more information on this). An email will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases.

For gold open access articles: Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'License Agreement' (more information). Permitted third party reuse of gold open access articles is determined by the author's choice of user license.

Author reuse rights and responsible sharing

As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.

Find out how you can share your research published in Elsevier journals.

Preprint policy

This journal will consider for review articles which have been made available previously as preprints. Please note that preprints can be shared anywhere at any time, in line with Elsevier's sharing policy. Sharing your preprints e.g. on a preprint server will not count as prior publication (see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information). Additionally, authors may post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Please update any pre-publication preprint versions with a link to the final published article.

Research data

The JHI encourages you to share data that supports your research publication in an appropriate data repository, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles. If you are sharing data, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the 'References' section for more information about data citation.

Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

For more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials, visit the research data page.

Reporting software

It is important that readers can replicate methodologies described by authors. We therefore ask that when authors have used open access software platforms, these are described appropriately within the Methods section of their work. This includes the website, software version and date accessed. These can be provided within brackets within the body of the text. If use of the software has been validated in a previous study, this should be referenced.

Reporting clinical trials

Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Registration of clinical trials

Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

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Elsevier Researcher Academy

Researcher Academy is a free e-learning platform designed to support early and mid-career researchers throughout their research journey. The 'Learn' environment at Researcher Academy offers several interactive modules, webinars, downloadable guides and resources to guide you through the process of writing for research and going through peer review. Feel free to use these free resources to improve your submission and navigate the publication process with ease.