In 2024, mHealth reviewers continue to make outstanding contributions to the peer review process. They demonstrated professional effort and enthusiasm in their reviews and provided comments that genuinely help the authors to enhance their work.
Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding reviewers, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as a reviewer. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.
February, 2024
Elizabeth M. Heitkemper, University of Texas, USA
February, 2024
Elizabeth M. Heitkemper
Elizabeth Heitkemper, PhD, RN, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, School of Nursing. Through her training, she has cultivated expertise in the following areas: self-management science, working with a variety of medically underserved (e.g., rural, racial/ethnic minorities, and/or income constrained) groups, biomedical informatics, community engagement, and public health nursing. Her research focuses on improving the health outcomes of medically underserved adults through innovative, user-driven technology interventions to facilitate data-driven decision making. Dr. Heitkemper is currently working on numerous research projects that include the development of a precision diabetes self-management intervention that targets problem-solving using continuous glucose data, the creation and refinement of a data visualization dashboard of social determinants of health data to allow for the identification of health disparities in rural communities by public health professionals, and co-creating a research agenda through sustained community engagement to improve the health of people experiencing homelessness. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
mHealth: What are the qualities a reviewer should possess?
Dr. Heitkemper: I think the most important quality a review needs to possess is dedication—to both the specific manuscript review being completed and to science more broadly since peer review plays such a critical role in the scientific process. Other qualities include knowledge and humility such that when someone’s knowledge isn’t relevant, they have the humility to identify it. Finally, I think that timeliness is critical as we’ve all been on the other side of waiting for reviewer comments and having it take longer than expected.
mHealth: What reviewers have to bear in mind while reviewing papers?
Dr. Heitkemper: Reviewers need to consider the methods and larger implications of the work they are reviewing. Both aspects need to be clear and relevant to mHealth to merit publication. Often the methods of a study will initially seem to be rigorous but upon closer inspection and deeper thought issues will become apparent. This is why I always start by reading the manuscript the day I agree to review it, so that I have ample time to let the methods and the way the study was conceptualized marinate. I usually find, in the second or third time I read a manuscript, that I am able to fully identify methodological issues or innovations. It was not until I started engaging with the articles I reviewed multiple times that I felt like I was truly giving the work the attention it deserved. For implications, I often see discussion sections that fail at placing what the study found within the larger context of the literature and clearly articulating their unique study contributions appropriately. While challenging to do, it is so important to fully identify the study’s contribution to science and articulate for the reader how the study’s findings impact the field.
mHealth: Why do you choose to review for mHealth?
Dr. Heitkemper: I choose to review for mHealth because I believe in the journal’s aims and scope and hope to contribute to its publishing of high-quality research. Furthermore, I think that mHealth will become even more significant and relevant as technology changes and the importance of the issues the journal addresses increase.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
