Statement of acceptance of conditions and responsibilities pertaining to the publication of a manuscript

Before your paper can be finalised, ALL AUTHORS must acknowledge and agree to the following conditions pertaining to ethical issues related to the publication of a paper:

1. Occupational Health Southern Africa subscribes to the criteria for authorship of research articles, developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.¹ In order to be acknowledged as an author, individuals must have satisfied all four of the following criteria:
   1. Contributed substantially to the conception and design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
   2. Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; AND
   3. Approved the final version to be published; AND
   4. Agreed 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.

In terms of this, ‘acquisition of funding’, ‘collection of data’, or ‘general supervision of the research group’, alone, do not qualify as authorship. In addition, all individuals who qualify for authorship of the research paper must be listed as authors.

2. Authors are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest and, in the case of a research paper, state what funding was received for conducting the research. Conflicts could include financial or personal relationships in the form of dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties.¹
3. Authors are advised that it is their responsibility to determine whether agreement is required from any parties for the use of material in their article, and to ensure that such permission is obtained, so that copyright is not infringed.
4. Authors are required to give the assurance that the content of the manuscript is their own work, and where it is not, that appropriate acknowledgement is given.
5. Authors are responsible for ensuring that statistical analyses contained within the manuscript have been checked for appropriateness and accuracy by a person with a sound knowledge of statistics.
6. Authors must inform the Editor of the existence of any other papers that they have submitted to other journals, have had published by other journals, or that are in the public domain, and that overlap with this manuscript. Copies of such papers must be supplied to the Editor.
7. The Publisher, Editors, SASOM, SAIOH, and MMPA are not liable for any damages or loss incurred as a result of any statement contained in this publication. Whilst every effort is made to ensure accuracy of this publication, neither the Publisher, Editors, SASOM, SAIOH, nor MMPA accept any responsibility for errors or omissions in the content, and reserve the right to edit all contributions. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editors, SASOM, SAIOH, or MMPA, neither do the Societies, Publisher, nor Editors endorse or guarantee the products advertised or claims made by the manufacturers.

Copyright assignment: once a paper is accepted for publication, the exclusive copyright in the paper is assigned to Occupational Health Southern Africa. Material from the paper may subsequently be used by the authors, provided that the wording is different.

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REFERENCE
1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publications. Updated February 2006. Available from http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf (accessed 27 Jan 2026).

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ALL AUTHORS are required to complete and submit the information below.