Editorial standards and methodology
How we choose sources, separate fact from analysis and opinion, handle numbers, and keep our publisher’s commercial interest out of the evidence.
Three kinds of statement
Our pieces label each kind of statement, so you can tell what a source established from what we concluded and what we think.
- Sourced fact
- Something a named source establishes. The source and its date sit right beside it, with a numbered link to the full reference.
- Analysis
- What we conclude from the evidence, with the reasoning shown so you can check it.
- Interpretation
- A judgment or a point of view, labeled as one and never dressed up as data.
Recommendations from professional bodies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, are reported as what they are: expert guidance, attributed to the body that issued it. They are not measurements, and we do not present them as findings.
How we choose sources
We start from the source closest to the evidence, in roughly this order:
- Official statistics and the agencies that produce them, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
- Peer-reviewed research, read in the original, not in a press release about it.
- Clinical reports and guidelines from professional bodies.
- Research from established nonprofit and academic programs, with their methods stated.
- Commercial and industry surveys, only when nothing better measures the question, and always named as such, with who ran them and how.
We do not cite a figure we have only seen quoted somewhere else. If we cannot find and read the original, we do not use the number.
How we handle numbers
- Every figure carries its source, the year its data describes, and the population it covers.
- We say whether a figure is an average or a median, per child or per family, and what it includes.
- A survey is described by who it surveyed. We do not call a survey nationally representative unless its authors do.
- When sources measure different things, such as “played in the past year” and “plays regularly”, we show both and explain the difference instead of blending them into one number.
- We prefer a range we can support to a precise number we cannot. Correlation is reported as correlation.
Research and analysis
When we analyze public data ourselves, the piece says which dataset, which years and which calculation, so the result can be checked. Each research report publishes its methodology: who or what was studied, when, where and how, the sample, and the limits of what it can show. We do not publish survey results we did not collect or cannot source.
Dates and updates
Every piece shows the date it was published. Reference pages are reviewed when their sources release new data, and they show the date of their last substantive update. We do not change a date to make a page look newer than its content.
How we use AI tools
AI tools help us organize research, draft, edit and analyze. They are tools, not sources, and they do not decide what we publish.
Before a statistics reference, research piece or evidence review is published, a human editor checks its factual claims against the sources it cites. The editor responsible is named on the piece, with the date of that check. We never publish quotations, data, experts or sources that an AI tool produced and we could not verify, and we do not present AI-generated images as photographs.
People and expertise
Bylines name real people in their real roles, linked to a profile that says who they are and how they relate to our publisher. The person named on a piece takes editorial responsibility for it. We do not invent experts, editors, reviewers or credentials. When we quote someone, the words are theirs, attributed to them, and quoted accurately.
Our publisher and other relationships
The publication is owned and published by ACTIQO. How that relationship is handled, and how evidence is kept separate from ACTIQO’s commercial interest, is set out in our publisher disclosure.
Coverage is never conditional on payment or on promoting ACTIQO, and we do not use affiliate links. If a piece ever involves a material relationship, such as payment, sponsorship or a free product, that piece carries a clear disclosure at the top.
Children’s privacy
We write about children’s activities, not about identifiable children. We do not publish a child’s name, image or personal details.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we correct it openly on the piece and log it. See our corrections policy, or contact us to report a possible error.