Medical and Public Safety Fact Checker for Consumer Home Safety

# Medical and Public Safety Fact Checker for Consumer Home Safety Book ## Project Overview We are seeking an experienced medical and public-safety fact checker to review an approximately 83,400-word consumer home-safety manuscript containing 24 chapters. The book covers carbon monoxide, medication errors, falls, fires, extreme temperatures, power outages, natural disasters, wildfire smoke, electrical and household hazards, food safety, safe infant sleep, vehicles, vulnerable populations, and emergency-response guidance. This is not a general line-editing assignment. A separate editor will address flow, phrasing, sentence structure, transitions, repetition, and reader engagement. The purpose of this assignment is to ensure that significant medical, emergency, technical, and public-safety recommendations are current, accurately stated, appropriately sourced, and suitable for a general consumer audience. ## Scope of Work ### 1. Source-to-Claim Verification * Open and review the cited source whenever reasonably accessible. * Confirm that the source supports the specific statement made in the manuscript. * Verify important statistics, numbers, risk estimates, timeframes, distances, temperatures, thresholds, and safety recommendations. * Identify citations that are relevant to the general subject but do not support the specific claim. * Identify outdated, weak, inaccessible, or inappropriate references. * Recommend authoritative replacement sources when reasonably available. * Check that in-text citations agree with the reference list. Reference checking must mean verifying source-to-claim agreement—not merely checking citation formatting. ### 2. Missing-Reference Identification Identify significant factual or safety claims that require support but currently lack a citation. Prioritize: * Medical and health claims * Mortality and injury statistics * Exact numbers and thresholds * Emergency-response instructions * Detector placement and maintenance * Generator and carbon-monoxide safety * Fire and electrical recommendations * Food temperatures and home-canning guidance * Safe infant sleep recommendations * Choking, CPR, stroke, heart-attack, severe-bleeding, poisoning, and fall-response guidance * Disaster sheltering and evacuation instructions * Statements using terms such as “always,” “never,” “most,” “leading cause,” or “no safe level” * Recommendations that could cause harm if incorrect The reviewer is not expected to add citations to personal observations, the author’s framework, ordinary transitions, or clearly nontechnical narrative passages. ### 3. Medical and Emergency-Guidance Review Review relevant content for consistency with current authoritative guidance involving: * Carbon-monoxide exposure * Medication safety * Falls and head injuries * Heatstroke, hypothermia, and temperature emergencies * Medical devices and refrigerated medication during outages * Smoke exposure and indoor-air quality * Infant and child safety * Older adults and people with disabilities * Severe bleeding * Stroke and heart-attack recognition * Choking and CPR * Poisoning * Emergency escalation and when to call 911 The reviewer should correct matters that can be resolved through authoritative sources and flag issues requiring physician approval. ### 4. Public-Safety and Technical Guidance Check relevant recommendations against authoritative sources such as: * CDC * FEMA * NOAA and the National Weather Service * EPA * U.S. Fire Administration * Consumer Product Safety Commission * USDA * American Academy of Pediatrics * American Heart Association or American Red Cross * National Fire Protection Association * National Institute of Standards and Technology * State or local emergency-management authorities Identify recommendations that vary according to manufacturer instructions, local building or fire codes, jurisdiction, housing type, or regional risk. The reviewer is not expected to act as a licensed engineer, electrician, fire-code official, building inspector, or attorney. Matters requiring that expertise should be clearly flagged rather than independently approved. ### 5. Emergency Cards and Internal Consistency * Verify that the emergency-reference cards agree with the corresponding chapters. * Identify contradictions between chapters, scorecards, checklists, and emergency cards. * Confirm that recurring numbers, thresholds, and instructions are consistent. * Check that the same organizations and sources are named consistently throughout the manuscript. ### 6. Reference-List Review * Reconcile in-text citations with the bibliography. * Identify sources listed but never cited. * Identify citations without corresponding bibliography entries. * Correct obvious author, organization, year, title, URL, and retrieval-date inconsistencies. * Identify malformed or duplicated entries. * Apply one consistent reference style. ## Priority Sections The highest-priority sections include: * Carbon monoxide * Medication errors * Falls * Fire, smoke, and heat * Extreme heat and cold * Power-grid failure * Bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, garages, and vehicles * Vulnerable populations * Medical and emergency-reference cards * Hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, evacuation, and return-home guidance ## Deliverables The reviewer must provide: 1. Microsoft Word manuscript with Track Changes enabled. 2. Comments explaining substantive medical, technical, evidence, or safety concerns. 3. Corrected and reconciled reference list. 4. A source-to-claim discrepancy report. 5. A list of important unsupported claims. 6. A list of weak or outdated sources and recommended replacements. 7. An unresolved-issues report identifying matters requiring author, physician, engineer, fire-safety, electrical, or other specialist approval. 8. One limited correction-verification pass after the author responds to the reviewer’s findings. The unresolved-issues report should identify: * Chapter or manuscript location * Relevant statement * Nature of the concern * Recommended action * Suggested authoritative source, when available * Priority level: critical, important, or minor ## Work Not Included This project does not include: * Full line editing * Developmental editing * Substantial rewriting for style * Book formatting * Legal review * Engineering certification * Building-code certification * Guaranteeing that all recommendations comply with every local jurisdiction * Independent original research * Verification of ordinary nontechnical narrative statements ## Required Qualifications Applicants should have demonstrated experience in one or more of the following: * Medical or scientific fact-checking * Consumer medical editing * Emergency medicine, nursing, paramedicine, or public health * Injury prevention * Emergency preparedness or disaster safety * Government or professional safety guidelines * Source-to-claim verification Experience reviewing long-form consumer manuscripts is strongly preferred. ## Proposal Requirements Please provide: * Relevant credentials and experience * Examples of comparable work * Description of your source-to-claim verification process * Authoritative databases and resources you use * Areas of this scope that fall outside your expertise * Confirmation that you will personally perform the work * Fixed project price * Estimated hours underlying the fixed price * Completion timeline * Proposed milestones * Included revision or correction-verification pass * Any specific exclusions or limits Any work outside the agreed scope must receive prior written authorization and be funded through a separate milestone. ## Paid Sample Finalists may be asked to complete a paid 1,500–2,000-word sample containing medical, emergency, numerical, and public-safety claims. The sample should demonstrate: * Source-to-claim verification * Recognition of unsupported or overstated claims * Identification of missing citations * Appropriate use of authoritative sources * Clear Track Changes and editorial comments * Ability to distinguish matters the reviewer can correct from matters requiring specialist approval ## Budget Target fixed-price budget: TBD