Editorial Standards & Evidence Policy

Elements84 publishes evidence-based educational health information for a general audience. Our content is designed to help readers understand a condition, a symptom, a test result or a treatment more clearly.

Nothing on Elements84 is a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare professional. Our content does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any medical condition, and it does not create a doctor–patient relationship. Readers with a personal health concern should always speak with their own clinician.

Every article we publish is held to the following principles:

Accuracy

Facts, dosages, cut-off values and thresholds are checked against current clinical guidance. When medical consensus has shifted, we update the article rather than leave outdated information in place.

Evidence First

Claims are traced to peer-reviewed literature, systematic reviews, or published guidelines from recognised medical bodies. Anecdotal reports, lifestyle-brand claims and low-quality sources are not used.

Transparency

Every article displays its author, its medical reviewer, its publication date and its last review date. Where relevant sources exist, we cite them openly.

Editorial Independence

Medical conclusions are set by the editorial team on the basis of evidence. Advertising, sponsorship, affiliate arrangements and commercial partnerships do not influence what we recommend.

Continuous Improvement

Published articles are revisited on a scheduled cycle and when new evidence appears. Corrections, clarifications and additions are treated as ordinary editorial work — not as exceptions.

Each article moves through a defined workflow before publication:

1. Topic selection — topics are chosen from real reader questions, search demand, and clinical gaps where accessible high-quality information is limited.
2. Evidence review — current guidelines and peer-reviewed evidence are gathered and summarised before drafting begins.
3. Content development — a writer with health-content experience produces a draft that prioritises clarity, medical accuracy and a neutral tone.
4. Editorial review — a senior editor checks structure, clarity, sourcing and consistency with the rest of the library.
5. Medical review — a qualified clinician reviews the article for medical accuracy, appropriate hedging, and alignment with current clinical guidance.
6. Publication — the article is published with an explicit author, medical reviewer and review date.
7. Ongoing review — the article is scheduled for periodic re-review and is revisited earlier if new guidelines or major safety information appear.

Elements84 draws on recognised sources of medical evidence. Reference to any organisation below does not imply endorsement by that organisation and does not imply an institutional affiliation.

• WHO — World Health Organization
• NIH — US National Institutes of Health
• PubMed — National Library of Medicine bibliographic database
• Cochrane Library — Cochrane systematic reviews
• CDC — US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• NICE — UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
• ESC — European Society of Cardiology
• AHA — American Heart Association
• ACC — American College of Cardiology
• ADA — American Diabetes Association
• ACS — American Cancer Society
• ESMO — European Society for Medical Oncology
• IDSA — Infectious Diseases Society of America
• USPSTF — US Preventive Services Task Force
• Peer-reviewed medical journals — indexed sources such as JAMA, BMJ, NEJM, The Lancet, Nature Medicine and specialty journals.

When more than one high-quality source exists, we reflect the range of positions rather than a single opinion.

Elements84 uses artificial intelligence as an editorial assistant, not as a source of medical authority. Specifically, AI helps with:

• organisation of information into readable structure
• readability, tone and language refinement
• drafting sections that are then reviewed by human editors
• surfacing questions that a real reader is likely to ask

AI does not independently establish medical recommendations on Elements84. AI output does not replace editorial review, medical review, or the reader's own clinician. Information produced with the assistance of AI should be interpreted together with recognised clinical guidance.

Each published article displays the following provenance so readers can judge it on the record:

• Publication date — when the article first went live.
• Last medical review — the most recent date a clinician re-checked the content.
• Supporting references — the guidelines, systematic reviews and primary studies the article draws on.
• Editorial team — the author and reviewer named on the article's provenance box.
• Review process — the workflow described in Section 3.

An article may be updated at any time when there is a substantive reason to do so. Common triggers include:

• publication of new clinical guidelines from a major medical body
• new peer-reviewed research that meaningfully changes practice
• important safety information or drug/device recalls
• regulatory updates from bodies such as the FDA, EMA, MHRA or equivalents

Where an update materially changes the medical guidance in an article, we update the “Last medical review” date at the top of the article.

We treat factual errors as a first-order editorial priority. When a possible error is reported, the article is re-checked by the editorial team; a clinician is consulted where the correction is medical in nature.

Substantive corrections are reflected in the article and the “Last medical review” date is refreshed. Minor typographical corrections are applied silently.

Readers can raise a correction via our contact form or the editorial contact section below.

Medical conclusions on Elements84 are set by the editorial team on the basis of evidence. The following categories of relationship do not, and will not, determine what our medical content says:

• advertising
• sponsors
• commercial partnerships
• affiliate relationships

Where any commercial relationship is present on a page (for example, a sponsored placement), it is labelled so the reader can see it. Editorial content — the articles themselves — is never modified in exchange for commercial consideration.

Elements84 publishes health calculators, self-assessment tools and decision support helpers to make evidence-based numbers easier for readers to use.

These tools are educational. They are not medical devices, unless a specific tool is explicitly identified as one. Their output is a starting point for a conversation with a qualified clinician, not a substitute for that conversation.

The Elements84 AI Health Assistant is an educational tool. Specifically:

• it does not establish a doctor–patient relationship
• it does not replace qualified healthcare professionals
• it does not provide emergency medical services
• it does not diagnose, prescribe, or dispense medical treatment

If you are experiencing emergency symptoms — chest pain, difficulty breathing, sudden weakness, loss of consciousness, severe bleeding, thoughts of self-harm, or any other symptom you believe may be a medical emergency — call your local emergency number immediately. Do not wait for a response from an AI assistant.

Elements84 applies technical and organisational safeguards intended to help protect user information. Details of how personal information is collected, used and stored are set out in our privacy policy.

We rely on our readers to help us stay accurate. If you have identified any of the following, please tell us so we can review the article:

• a factual error, including numerical values, ranges or dosages
• information that appears out of date relative to current guidelines
• a broken or moved reference link
• a section that is unclear, ambiguous or open to misinterpretation

You can reach the editorial team via the Elements84 contact form. Please quote the article URL and, where possible, the specific paragraph or figure you have a question about.

Our goal is not to publish the most content. Our goal is to publish health information that is clear, evidence-based, transparent, and worthy of our users’ trust.