The Journal of Shelter Medicine and Community Animal Health (JSMCAH) is a society-published, open-access, continuous publication, peer-reviewed journal of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians. JSMCAH publishes research that advances shelter and community animal health, welfare, and access to veterinary care, promoting evidence-based practices to improve outcomes for animals and the people who care for them. Learn more >>
Human Subjects Research: Policy Statement
Updated June 21, 2026
This document states the official editorial policy of the Journal of Shelter Medicine and Community Animal Health (JSMCAH) regarding ethical oversight for research involving human participants. It provides the basis for editorial decisions on manuscript acceptance and rejection and may be cited in editorial correspondence with authors. For practical guidance on meeting these requirements, see the Human Subjects Research: Author Decision Guide.
Table of Contents
Overarching Commitment
JSMCAH is committed to ensuring that all research involving human participants is conducted responsibly and in a manner that creates no significant risk of professional, legal, social, or financial harm. This policy applies to any research in which humans participate, including surveys, interviews, observational studies, and evaluations of organizational practices, even when the primary research question concerns animals rather than people.
The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts on ethical grounds when, in their judgment, research was conducted without appropriate protections for participants. This policy applies to research conducted prior to submission as well as ongoing or planned research.
Absolute Requirement
Rule: Vulnerable Populations. Research involving participants from vulnerable populations, including children, prisoners, pregnant individuals, or others with diminished decision-making autonomy, must have received independent review prior to the conduct of the research, regardless of research type or institutional affiliation. Acceptable review bodies include an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or international equivalent, or an independent commercial or ad hoc committee with appropriate expertise. Research involving vulnerable populations submitted without evidence of prior independent review will not be considered for publication.
Institutional Authors
Authors affiliated with an institution must comply with their institution's human subjects research requirements, which supersede JSMCAH policy. This includes institutional determinations of exemption: an exemption is a formal determination made by the institution's IRB, not a self-assessment by the researcher. Authors should include their IRB approval or exemption determination number in the Methods section. For retrospective studies and programmatic research, authors should attest to their institution's determination, including any finding that review was not required.
Non-Institutional Authors
Retrospective and existing data. Include a declaration in the Methods section stating that ethical review was not required given the retrospective nature of the data, along with a description of confidentiality protections for any personally identifiable information.
Survey, interview, and observational research. Consent (explicit or implicit through voluntary participation) and participant anonymization are the two core documentation requirements. Research in which both are present should describe each in the Methods section. Research in which consent was not clearly obtained, or in which participant identity is not protected, should contact the editor before submission.
Programmatic and systems-level research. Organizational permission from participating organizations and anonymization of individual participant data are the core requirements. Authors should describe both in the Methods section. Authors who did not obtain organizational permission should contact the editor before submitting.
Consent
Informed consent may be explicit (a signed or verbal consent process) or implicit (voluntary completion of a survey in which the introduction clearly described the research purpose, use of data, and optional nature of participation). For internet-based surveys, completion following an informative introduction page is generally considered to constitute implicit consent. The form of consent obtained should be described in the Methods section.
Research conducted without any form of individual consent, such as retrospective data review and organizational-level programmatic research, should include a declaration explaining why individual consent was not applicable. The editorial team recognizes that these research types often cannot obtain individual consent by design.
Editorial Discretion
The editorial team is available for pre-submission consultation on questions of consent, participant protection, research classification, and documentation requirements. Authors are particularly encouraged to reach out when research straddles the animal and human research boundaries (for example, surveys about animal outcomes conducted with animal owners); participants were not individually consented but data is fully anonymized; research was conducted prior to awareness of these guidelines; or the research involves organizational rather than individual participants.
Illustrative Examples
An internet survey of shelter managers about intake procedures. Completion followed an introduction describing the research purpose. All responses were anonymous.
✓ Suitable: describe consent process and anonymizationA researcher analyzes aggregate staff scheduling data from a shelter that agreed to participate. No individual identifiers are retained.
✓ Suitable: describe organizational permission and anonymizationAdoption rates at five shelters are compared before and after a fee waiver program, using only shelter-level outcome data.
✓ Suitable: describe organizational permission; individual data not involvedObservation of public adoption events to document human-animal interaction. Participants were members of the public in a public setting.
✓ Suitable: describe observation protocol and anonymization of individuals observedA survey of adopters about satisfaction with the adoption process. No consent language was included in the survey introduction, and names were collected.
⟳ Consult editor: consent and anonymization both unclearA researcher conducts interviews with youth volunteers (ages 14-17) at an animal shelter about their experiences with animal care. No independent review was obtained before the study began.
✕ Not suitable: vulnerable population requires independent reviewStructured interviews with shelter veterinarians about euthanasia decision-making, with named attribution and audio recording.
⟳ Consult editor: identifiable participant data requires guidanceA faculty member surveys veterinary students about clinical preparedness without IRB review, believing the survey to be exempt.
⟳ Consult editor: exemption is an institutional determination, not a self-assessment
